The controversial film Green Book just won an Oscar for Best Picture. If you’ve missed the film and all the media coverage, the story is about segregation during the Jim Crow Era as a black pianist and his white driver tour the South. The Green Book of the title was a travel guide published from 1936 to 1966 by Victor Hugo Green with lists of lodgings and restaurants that would accommodate black travelers.

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Although its schools were not segregated, Utah had segregated lodgings and restaurants and worship, and Salt Lake City had segregated housing: realtors in many areas would not sell to black residents. In the best-known incident, the Hotel Utah prohibited singer Marian Anderson from staying in the hotel in the 1930s, but finally agreed to allow her to stay if she used the freight elevator and remained out of public areas.

Every black family in Utah has its stories of race-based discrimination. Frances Leggroan Fleming recalled, “When I used to go to Primary and religious class [at the local ward house], they’d say, ‘You can come in, but you can’t take part.’ So it was hard. It was hard growing up here. They talk about the South, but Salt Lake was no better. No better.”

The first Relief Society President of the Genesis Group, Lucile Perkins Bankhead, was the descendant of Mormon pioneers of 1847, 1848, and 1849 and faced her share of discrimination and racism. In 1939, she and other black women petitioned the Utah legislature against creating a black ghetto in the Salt Lake Valley.

Rubie Lugdol Nathaniel remembered, “Salt Lake City always had its segregation. We never had to ride in the rear of the bus . . . but you couldn’t sit wherever you wanted. You couldn’t go in dance halls, you couldn’t go in restaurants, and you couldn’t go to shows except in certain places.” (Stories from Ronald G. Coleman, “African-American Community,” in Missing Stories: An Oral History of Ethnic and Minority Groups in Utah (University of Utah Press, 2000).)

Here is a sample of the Utah businesses that advertised in the guide. These are from the 1940 (cover shown above), 1950, and 1960 editions.

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A loose network of families and black churches also provided assistance to travelers. The two historic black churches in Utah are Calvary Baptist and Trinity A.M.E. The retired pastor of Calvary Baptist, Rev. France Davis, has done notable work on the history of the black churches of Utah. (Light in the Midst of Zion.)

After sporadic efforts to ensure civil rights in Utah, residents formed a local branch of the NAACP one hundred years ago. The Salt Lake Tribune just ran an article about the beginnings of the NAACP in Utah.

All images courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.