Victor Hugo Green with his wife Alma created the Green Book because of their own and their

friends experiences traveling in America.

In the guides, they repeatedly stated they wanted to reduce the frustrations

black people endured while traveling around the country.

But where did the idea for the Green Book come from?

Why was Victor Hugo Green, a postal worker, especially motivated to publish such a guide?

How did he even gather so much information?

This is driving the green book from McMillan Podcasts, and I'm your host Alvin Hall.

Joining me on the road is producer Janay Woods Weber.

Like me, Janay traces part of her family history to the American South.

To learn more about the origins of the Green Book and how it came to be the lifeline for

black Americans traveling during segregation and the Jim Crow era, Janay and I headed to the Schoenberg Center for research in black culture.

It is located in a modern building at the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and 135th Street in New York's Harlem.

The center contains over 11 million books, manuscripts, paintings, etchings, posters, and pamphlets.

There we met Associate Chief Librarian Myra Liriano,

who oversees the collection that includes

the Green Book Digital Archives.

Myra brought the books all in protective covers to us and spread

them out on a conference table. By the way, the Schaumburg is located mere blocks from the office where Green ran his publishing business.

Myra, when was the first one published?

We don't own a 1936 edition, but it, throughout the Green books,

there are histories of the Green books themselves,

...