When much of Route 66 was segregated

If you’ve got an hour, watch this recent video about author and photographer Candacy Taylor, who attended the Bay Area Book Festival to talk about her research into Route 66 and the Negro Motorist Green Book.

If you’re not familiar with the Green Book, it was an annual guide published from 1936 to 1966 by Harlem postal worker Victor Green to help black travelers find welcoming gas stations, lodging, restaurants, auto-repair shops, etc., during the Jim Crow era. Twenty-two editions of Green’s guides have been digitized by the New York Public Library.

Taylor has tracked down the surviving businesses that catered to black travelers, and she’s heading to the East Coast to fulfill a fellowships and complete her research for a forthcoming book. Some of the images Taylor showed during her talk are quite jarring:

The video also provides a glimpse of a few things Taylor has found:

— Esso gas stations, owned by Exxon, welcomed black travelers and hired black men at franchises. Exxon even hired a black marketing specialist for Esso. These stations also helped distribute the Negro Motorist Green Book.

— Harvey Houses in the American Southwest also were known for welcoming black travelers.

— Taylor found a 1955 newspaper article where the NAACP reported just six of 100 motels in Albuquerque served black people.

— The “whites only” and “colored only” signs for bathrooms, water fountains and other public facilities from the Jim Crow era are well-known. But Taylor displayed a photo that showed a “whites only,” coin-operated Coca-Cola machine (pictured at top).

— Taylor found a total of about 350 businesses on Route 66 listed in Green Books. Less than half have survived.

— In 1950, six of eight states on Route 66 had some form of legal segregation. In Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma, racial segregation was required by law.

— Fantastic Caverns, an attraction for decades for many Route 66 travelers in Springfield, Missouri, once hosted Ku Klux Klan rallies, and Taylor displayed a photograph of one of the KKK gatherings there.

— Taylor uncovered some evidence motel names that abbreviated to “KKK” was code they were sympathetic the Ku Klux Klan and welcomed only white customers. She said the Southern Poverty Law Center couldn’t confirm this, but said it was possible. According to the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program archives, the only Route 66 motels that met the “KKK” criteria were Kozy Kottage Kamp in Adrian, Texas, and Kozy Kottage Kourt in St. James, Missouri.

— Green got the idea for the “Negro Motorist Green Book” after seeing similar guides for Jewish travelers.

(Hat tip to ThisCruelWar.com; captured image from video of a segregated Coke machine)