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Join us at MLK Library for an interactive story time with Keila V. Dawson featuring her book Open the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book.
After the story time check out the Negro Motorist Green Book exhibit in the Great Hall of the Library!
For reasonable accommodations, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation, please allow at least seven (7) days notice.
OPENING THE ROAD: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book
“Hungry? Check the Green Book. Tired? Check the Green Book. Sick? Check the Green Book.”
In the late 1930s when segregation was legal and Black Americans couldn’t visit every establishment or travel everywhere they wanted to safely, a New Yorker named Victor Hugo Green decided to do something about it.
In the first picture book about the creation and distribution of The Green Book, author Keila Dawson and illustrator Alleanna Harris tell the story of the man behind it and how this travel guide opened the road for a safer, more equitable America.
Keila V. Dawson writes fiction and nonfiction picture books. A two-time Ohioana finalist, she is a co-editor and contributor to the 2024 Green Earth Book Award and 2024 ILA Social Justice Literature Award title, No World Too Big: Young People Fighting Global Climate Change, the companion title to the award-winning title, No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History, and the forthcoming No Brain the Same: Neurodivergent Young Activists Shaping Our Future. She is the author of Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book, The King Cake Baby, Yumbo Gumbo, and the Spanish edition, El gumbo más delicioso/Yumbo Gumbo. A New Orleans native, Dawson has also lived and worked in states across the U.S., and abroad in the Philippines, Japan, and Egypt. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.s.
The Negro Motorist Green Book, an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with award-winning author, photographer and cultural documentarian, Candacy Taylor, offers an immersive look at the reality of travel for African Americans in mid-century America and how the annual guide served as an indispensable resource for the nation’s rising African American middle class and evidence of a vibrant business class. The companion exhibition, The Green Book in D.C.: “A Particular Place for Particular People,” was produced by DC Public Library to complement the national, traveling exhibition by taking a deep dive into the stories of the more than 150 businesses and organizations right here in the District that were featured in The Green Book. A capsule version of this local history exhibit will be available at eight neighborhood libraries around D.C.
AGE GROUP: | Seniors | Birth - 5 | Adults | 5 - 12 Years Old | 13 - 19 Years Old (Teens) |
EVENT TYPE: | Exhibit | Author Talk |
