An Art Show Inspired by the Impact of The Green Book

Travel has always been an integral part of America’s mythology. Manifest Destiny, the belief that colonists and pioneers were entitled to traverse and own all of the land between two shining seas, is our national origin story. But travel, much like the American Dream, has not always been equally accessible for all Americans.

For “Sanctuary,” an exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York City, artist Derrick Adams created pieces based on the Negro Motorist Green Book to examine travel through the lenses of history, fashion, and architecture. The Green Book, as it is otherwise known, was a compilation of businesses—gas stations, restaurants, motels, clubs—across the country that were willing to serve African Americans in the mid-20th century.

In the decades before the Civil Rights Act, businesses could discriminate along racial lines with impunity. African Americans relocating, traveling for business, or simply vacationing with their families could find themselves stranded in a sea of establishments that were whites-only. Along the storied Route 66, six out of the eight states that housed the road had official segregation laws on the books. There were also “sundown towns” scattered all across the country, which had explicit or implicit rules about non-whites leaving city borders before the sun set.

Which is why Victor H. Green, a letter carrier from Harlem, first published the The Green Book in 1936, tapping into his network of postal worker connections to find qualifying businesses across the nation. Green got the idea from Jewish guidebooks that were created along similar lines. By the end of its run 30 years later, The Green Bookwould span almost 100 pages and all 50 states, as well as international destinations including Canada and Bermuda. The first edition cost 25 cents; the last, $1.

Entering the exhibit on MAD’s third floor, the viewer becomes a participant in the world Adams has created from the moment they step out of the elevator. A wooden structure, designed to look like a road, creates a half-ring around the exhibit’s walls. It is broken up by four open doorways, and Adams says that watching the way people react to those doors—seeing how some pause to ponder their right to enter while others stroll right on in—is a revelation in itself.

When creating the show, Adams says, “The very first thing I thought about was access and boundaries. The way the exhibit was constructed, I want to have this fence going through the space to automatically stop the viewer and make them realize it’s something they have to go through to get to somewhere else.”

Once viewers step inside, there are multiple elements to explore. Wooden panels on the walls nod to different services readers could find in The Green Book, and Adams uses fabric and shape to explore the porous boundary between interiors and exteriors and the liminality of space. Rectangles and trapezoids cut out of hotel upholstery fabric are used to simultaneously represent the brick façades of apartment buildings and the exteriors of an old-fashioned handbag; an illusion aided by the use of bag handles, doors, and windows. Where the fabric swatches end, Adams says, the interior of a space begins. The doors and windows are a way of looking in and blue squares represent ways of looking out.

Learn more at City Lab

Chris Alexakisart, environment