Join Central Piedmont Libraries for, “Navigating Jim Crow: The Green Book and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina” Traveling Exhibit between February 28- May 6, 2022.
Created by the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission (AAHC), a division of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resource, this traveling exhibit features impactful stories from oral histories and showcases sites important to, and personal memories about, American travel during the “Jim Crow” era of legal segregation. “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” published between 1936 and 1966, was both a guide and a tool of resistance designed to confront the realities of racial discrimination in the United States and beyond. The book listed more than 300 North Carolina businesses—from restaurants and hotels, to tourist homes, nightclubs and beauty salons—in the three decades that is was published. The exhibit highlights a complex statewide network of business owners and Green Book sites that allowed African American communities to thrive, and that created “oasis spaces” for a variety of African-American travelers.
Library Host Sites:
- Central Campus Library: February 28-May 6, 2022
- Cato Campus: February 28-March 11, 2022
- Harper: March 14-March 25, 2022
- Harris: March 28- April 8, 2022
- Levine: April 11 -April 22
- Merancas: April 25- May 6, 2022
Eight vibrant panels form the traveling exhibit, showcasing images of business owners, travelers, and historic and present-day images of North Carolina Green Book sites. The words of African-American travelers and descendants of Green Book site owners are featured prominently in the exhibit.