Traveling while black: A Jim Crow survival guide

A revival of attention to “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide” (1936-1964) roused my curiosity about what places in North Carolina welcomed black travelers under Jim Crow.

It isn’t long, but the list in the 1949 edition includes some evocative names: the Carver, Lincoln and Booker T. Washington hotels; the Friendly City beauty parlor; the Black Beauty Tea Room; the New Progressive tailor shop; the Big Buster tavern and Blue Duck Inn.

Also mentioned is the Alexander Hotel in Charlotte, where such prominent figures as  W.E.B. Du Bois and Louis Armstrong stayed before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required that public accommodations be public.