The automobile transformed the way we commute, vacation, and visit loved ones. However, for African Americans, it offered something else: the ability to travel independent of segregated busses, trains, and trolleys. Despite the opportunities made possible by affordable automobiles, for Black Americans living in the era of Jim Crow segregation, travel could be a humiliating and even dangerous experience.
Prior to traveling, many African Americans consulted The Green Book: an annual directory that listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, salons, and other businesses that welcomed Black travelers. Beginning in 1938, Elizabeth (Coles) Dawson of Reading, advertised her home at 441 Buttonwood Street as a safe, welcoming place for all travelers.
We have no idea how many guests Elizabeth accommodated in the twenty-eight-year period during which she was advertising, but in the majority of Green Book editions, she was Berks County’s lone advertiser.
Many editions of the Green Book included this message: “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.”
Elizabeth lived long enough to see the beginnings of this change: the final printing of The Green Book occurred in 1966, shortly after the United States passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
(There is a movie called Green Book released in 2018)
Bradley Smith
Archivist & Assistant Director
Berks History Center
This photo shows Elizabeth Dawson’s home at 441 Buttonwood Street as it appears today. (It is the home in the center, without an awning)
