Family recalls travel during segregation as Colorado embarks on Black History initiative

Coloradans love to get out and explore our beautiful state.  But for Black Americans in the Jim Crow era, road trips weren't so simple.

History Colorado will soon hit the road to explore the places that welcomed African Americans in the 1950's and earlier; known as "Green Book" sites.

The Green Book was a guidebook for African American travelers that provided a list of establishments throughout the country that served African American patrons.

There were actually several guides that served this purpose, including the Go Guide to Pleasant Motoring and the Nationwide Hotel Association guide.

For the family of Bill and Marie Greenwood and their four children, camping was often the preferred lodging, partly for financial reasons, but also because the Greenwood's encountered racist practices by businesses before passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Denver resident Jim Greenwood recalls traveling all over the country with his parents and siblings, memories among the most rewarding of his youth.

He said, "We camped and we traveled a lot, a lot of it was camping. My mom had a Green Book.  I didn't really know she had it until one day I found it at home."

Films capture the Greenwood family's travels during the 1950s. 

"It allowed us to realize how much more of a world there was than just our own block our own neighborhood, our own town," Greenwood said.

But it was a time when African American travelers faced being turned away or threatened.

Greenwood told us, "We passed gas stations.  We would get into a town and say well maybe we're sleeping in the car tonight."

Segregation was not going to stop Greenwood's parents from exploring America with their children.

Bill Greenwood - a budget director at Lowry Air Force base - and Marie, the first Black tenured teacher in Denver Public Schools.

With the help of information provided in The Green Book and similar guides, the Greenwoods traveled the country.

Jim said, "There was always a transition period to find the right place. Again I was very young so I didn't know all of the process that they went through, but you knew there was something going on."

Jim remembers one day in Utah, the day he discovered boysenberry ice cream, something scary was also happening.

"I rarely ever saw my mother cry.  Mom cried that night.  Because evidently and I found out much later, that basically Dad couldn't find any place for us to stay."

Bill felt compelled to carry a credential, a letter from then Colorado Governor Bill McNichols.

"So he used his letter, and evidently that letter allowed us to not only get into a motel, to get into a motel where we were welcomed and we were allowed to stay that night.  And we were allowed to eat at the restaurant there."

Interestingly, Greenwood said, his family did not feel discriminated against in Canada. 

"There is a subtext when you feel that there's tension. And that didn't really happen up in Canada primarily in Alberta and British Columbia. But you felt it here in the States."

Now, with a grant from the National Park Service, History Colorado will study dozens of places in our state that welcomed Black travelers before passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Patrick Eidman, Chief Preservation Officer for History Colorado said, "Such an important early history in our state.  Too often it's portrayed from a perspective of white Americans at the time so to bring this additional perspective on I think is really critical."

This is the first statewide initiative in Colorado's history to focus exclusively on African American travel and resources.

And it's something Jim Greenwood salutes.

"Honor those entities, those facilities that said 'no' you're welcome, I mean honor them."