Overground Railroad - by Candacy Taylor

Book Synopsis

A New York Times Notable Book, Overground Railroad explores the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book, the "Bible of Black Travel"

Published from 1936 to 1967, during the Jim Crow years and into the civil rights movement, when travel for black America was difficult and dangerous, the Green Book was an ingenious solution to a horrific problem. It listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, stores, nightclubs, and other businesses across the United States that were safe for black people to patronize. Overground Railroad celebrates the stories behind--and contained within--Victor Green's guide, tracing its history and revealing the contemporary events that helped shape how black people endured and triumphed despite incredible obstacles.

Candacy Taylor drove through the neighborhoods where Green Book sites once thrived. Her work documents the scars that redlining, urban renewal, gentrification, and mass incarceration have left on these communities. Although less than 5 percent of Green Book businesses are still operating, these sites of sanctuary symbolize black ingenuity, resourcefulness, strength, entrepreneurship, and resilience. Overground Railroad tells the untold story of black travel, offering readers a rich opportunity to reexamine America's story of segregation, black migration, and the rise of the black leisure class.

Review Quotes

"Overground Railroad is an extraordinary reckoning with the America that whites have always believed existed, and with the America that blacks actually experienced, navigated, and made theirs despite every barrier."

--Heather Ann Thompson "Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Lega"

"...a fascinating history of black travel.. telling the sweeping story of black travel within Jim Crow America across four decades."-- "The New York Times Book Review"

"...her book is a moving and needed history. The overt white nationalism of our era highlights the covert racism that never went away."-- "Bookforum"

"A fascinating look at a groundbreaking guide."-- "The New York Post"

"An enriching look at African American history through the lens of the black motorist, and as one of the few books on the subject, this is essential for most collections."-- "Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW"

"Candacy Taylor not only examines the history of the Green Book, but also dives into what its impact means for Black individuals and families today." - Bustle-- "Bustle"

"Candacy Taylor's cleverly titled, heroically researched Green Book travelogue should be indispensable reading. The Underground Railroad carried tens of thousands of slaves to freedom. Taylor's Overground Railroad transports their twentieth-century descendants to the Jim Crow reality of a hypocritical country. Her stunning book compels us to wonder where the ride is taking all of us now."--David Levering Lewis "author of two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies of W. E. B. Du Bois"

"If 'making a way out of no way' is a theme that runs throughout African American life, few things encapsulate that theme more powerfully than the Green Book. A symbol of Jim Crow America, it is also a stunning rebuke of it, born out of ingenuity and the relentless quest for freedom. Candacy Taylor's own quest for Green Book sites throughout the United States reveals her own relentlessness as well as a potent gift for bringing these sites, and the black past, alive."--Henry Louis Gates Jr. "Harvard University"

"In offering tangible actions readers can take, Taylor has created a valuable document that, like The Green Book itself, serves as a bittersweet handbook of resilience in the face of injustice."-- "Chapter16.org"

"In scope and tone, "Overground Railroad" recalls Isabel Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns...At its center, the book is a nuanced commentary of how black bodies have been monitored, censured or violated, and it compellingly pulls readers into the current news cycle."-- "The Los Angeles Times"

"Overground Railroad is an eye-opening, deeply moving social history of American segregation and black migration during the middle years of the 20th century."-- "BookPage, STARRED review"

"Overground Railroad reorients the narrative of allure surrounding Route 66 in order to account for the grim reality of the violence that black people faced on that old American road."

-- "The Atlantic"

"Published during the period of Jim Crow segregation, the various editions of the Green Book identified establishments willing to serve blacks, ranging from hotels and restaurants to drugstores and gas stations. Overground Railroad carefully places these operations in their historical and geographic context and provides a wealth of useful information not only for social scientists, historians, students, and journalists who want to examine important aspects of the changing black experience, but for general readers as well."--William Julius Wilson "author of The Truly Disadvantaged"

"Taylor, previously a Harvard fellow, gives the topic the context and meticulous research it deserves, while keeping an eye on current race relations."-- "National Geographic"

"The overarching story of the Green Book reminds us that individual acts of bravery contributed immeasurably to standing up to segregation."-- "The Daily Beast"

"The strength of this book about a book lies in the street-level views through which the American road unspools in all its compromised glory."-- "The Economist"

"With passion, conviction, and clarity, [Candacy] Taylor's book unearths a fascinating and true--if not willfully obscured--history of African American activism and entrepreneurship in the United States. This remarkable study broadens our understanding of black life, leisure, and struggles for equality in twentieth-century America, presents the Green Book as a social movement in response to a crisis in black travel, and makes a compelling case for the need to protect more diverse African American sites that have been heretofore underappreciated."--Brent Leggs "Executive Director, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund"

About the Author

CANDACY TAYLOR is an award-winning author, photographer, and cultural documentarian. Her work has been featured in more than fifty eighty media outlets, including The New Yorker, Newsweek, Oprah, Time Magazine, and the Atlantic. She curated Green Book, a traveling exhibition by the Smithsonian, and has received numerous fellowships and grant awards, including those from the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Park Service, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Taylor has driven more than half a million miles documenting American culture, and after learning about the Green Book, she never looked at travel, or even America, the same way again. Taylor lives in Chicago.