The Green Book of South Carolina
Explore even more South Carolina history with a handy online travel guide to more than 350 African-American heritage and culture sites across the state.
Photo courtesy of the South Carolina African-American Heritage Commission
The eight South Carolina locations on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail reflect only a small sampling of the rich number of African-American cultural sites that are scattered throughout the state. To make it easier to find these spots—their number exceeds 350, and they are located in every county in the state—the South Carolina African-American Heritage Commission created a web-based travel guide called The Green Book of South Carolina.
Launched two years ago, the site allows visitors to plan tours based on specific interests—historic churches or historic cemeteries, for example—or to explore cultural sites around a particular city. Mobile-optimized, the site also features a statewide map and GPS-enabled driving directions, says project leader Dawn Dawson-House, director of corporate communications for South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.
The name of the website pays tribute to a publication of a similar name published from the 1930s through the 1960s, which listed African-American-friendly motels, restaurants, nightclubs and other points of interest for black families traveling the highways in those often-perilous decades.
When it first appeared in 1936, pages in the Negro Motorist Green Book numbered less than 20 and entries covered metropolitan New York. By the final year of publication, the size of the book had expanded five-fold, and helped African-American travelers navigate the entire United States.
The old Green Books are also inspiring new additions to the modern travel guide, Dawson-House says.
“Right now, we’re going through all of the original Green Books from 1936 to 1966 and we’re looking at all of the sites in South Carolina that were advertised,” she says. “We’re trying to locate them and see if they are still standing. If they are, we’re going to put them in the database and create an original Green Book Tour.”
To learn more and research South Carolina cultural sites, visit greenbookofsc.com or follow the project on Twitter @greenbookofsc using the hashtag #GreenBookSC.
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