What was the Green Book? New traveling exhibit makes way to IL Holocaust Museum, exploring Jim Crow

SKOKIE, Unwell. (WLS) — A brand new touring exhibit from the Smithsonian Institute has made its approach to the Chicago space.

“The Negro Motorist Inexperienced E book” is now on the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie.

The Inexperienced E book was a journey information revealed from 1936 to 1967, for African American households and people, letting them journey safely and with dignity throughout the Jim Crow period. The exhibit takes you on the journey.

“Carry your Inexperienced E book with you, you might want it” was outstanding on the publication’s cowl. A stroll by the exhibit reveals the difficulties and risks Black People confronted whereas touring by automobile, together with the artistic methods it was handled.

“Not solely will they study concerning the time interval throughout the Jim Crow period and segregation within the U.S., however what is the actually optimistic, extremely wealthy story being informed right here is about Black entrepreneurship, resistance and actually resilience within the face of Jim Crow,” mentioned Arielle Weininger, chief curator on the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

One a part of the exhibit enables you to take an interactive driving tour throughout the 40s and 50s alongside two completely different routes, one utilizing the Inexperienced E book and one with out.

There have been some 10,000 companies listed within the Inexperienced E book nationwide, from eating places to service stations.

Customer Patrick Yarbrough just lately found a duplicate Inexperienced E book that belonged to his mother and father.

Planning a go to to the Illinois Holocaust Museum

“Once we’d journey, we might cease on the facet of the highway to eat meals that my mother had ready. I by no means questioned what we have been doing, and in a while I would look in my mother and father’ photograph albums and see them doing the identical factor again then,” Yarbrough mentioned.

Chicago had greater than 200 websites within the information, most of them in Bronzeville, most of them gone.

The well-known Regal Theatre and Savoy Ballroom at forty seventh Avenue and King Drive, the place Little Stevie Marvel’s “Fingertips Half II” was recorded, is now the Harold Washington Cultural Middle.

The Sutherland Resort at forty seventh Avenue and Drexel Boulevard, the place Louis Armstrong carried out, has been changed into luxurious flats.

The Historic Wabash YMCA remains to be standing at thirty seventh Avenue and Wabash Avenue, and nonetheless supplies housing and job coaching.

“It was additionally the one place the place African People socialized and have been capable of make selections about what was occurring of their neighborhood,” mentioned Patricia Abrams, govt director of Renaissance Collaborative.

The primary Black-owned airport within the nation in south suburban Robbins was additionally within the Inexperienced E book. It solely lasted two years, however led the way in which for an aeronautics faculty to coach Black pilots.

There’s additionally a piece on Route 66 and the hazards African People confronted driving it as a result of it went by so many “sunset cities,” the place Black residents weren’t allowed after the solar set.

The exhibit runs by April 23.