Green Book legislation passes Virginia House

Decades before people could rely on the internet for hotel or restaurant suggestions, Black Americans traveling across the country during the Jim Crow era relied on a guidebook of amenities to keep safe in segregated parts of the country.

Now Virginia legislators are considering giving travelers the opportunity to explore the routes and places found in the Green Book after the House of Delegates passed legislation on Tuesday to permit the placement of historical signs at those sites.

Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, the patron of House Bill 1968, said he was “very hopeful that when we get to the Senate, we’re going to have partners over there who are as excited about this idea as we are, and I think we’re going to see bipartisan support over there as well.”

Martin Brown, Virginia’s chief diversity officer and director of the state’s Office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion said Gov. Glenn Youngkin supports the bill. Brown said Youngkin believes it is “consistent with promoting all history” and “recognizes the disparities that took place, but also celebrates the consistent overcoming effort of African Americans.”

Victor Hugo Green, a mailman from New York, published the Green Book annually from 1936 to 1966, a time when local and state Jim Crow laws legalized racial segregation.