These images are from The Negro Motorist Green Book 1940 edition. The Green Book, published from 1936 – 1964, served as a guide for African Americans traveling around the country during the Jim Crow segregation era. To explore the complete issues visit the New York Public Library Digital Collections at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=ab…

“I couldn't understand why all the black men had signs that said 'I AM A MAN.'”

In this vignette, eight-year-old Mikey spends two nights in a homeless shelter, where he and his family are too afraid to sleep for fear that someone would steal their things. The family then meets a caseworker who helps them into a temporary apartment while they work toward a more permanent home.

Doreen Rappaport tells the story of a young Suzie King Taylor and her brother who attended a secret school for black children in Georgia in the mid-1800s. Later on, Taylor would become the first black woman to teach openly in a freedmen's school.

Brother Pedro meets Juan on a dusty road and sees that the man is very troubled. The priest helps Juan secure medicine for his sick wife. After many years, a prosperous and happy Juan returns to Brother Pedro to help him, yet it is Pedro who shows Juan another miracle.

This story speaks of the importance of giving. When hard times fall on his land, Buddha reaches out to the wealthy, asking them to help feed the poor. The rich people grumble and refuse until a young, well-to-do girl steps forward and offers to take her bowl from house-to-house to be filled for those less fortunate than herself. Supriya succeeds and many in the land fill her bowl and their own to give to the poor.

As the tsar sets out across the countryside in disguise, he meets two very different families and learns of the differing people (and their motives) living in his land.