Golden Globe (2019) winner for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), with major nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Viggo Mortensen), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Mahershala Ali), Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing in the upcoming 91st Academy Awards, the buddy road trip movie “Green Book” takes its title from The Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual travel guide that was published annually from 1936 to 1966, which listed businesses and other establishments that served Black customers and enabled Black travelers to plan their road trips to help them avoid harassment, arrest, or violence.
The Green Book, as it was called, was created and published by an African-American New York City mailman, Victor Hugo Green, and became an indispensable survival tool for African Americans travelling by car. Originally it covered only the New York area, but it gradually expanded to cover most of North America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. In the U.S, it became invaluable in the South, where Jim Crow segregation laws varied by county and state, and unofficial rules in “Sundown towns” forbade Black Americans from being out after dark. After President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation between black and white became illegal, The Green Book was no longer needed, and it slowly faded into history.
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