Story originally published: Friday, July 12, 2024 at 7:33pm.
Salt Lake City (KUTV) – In January 2023, we first introduced our historical story series on Green Book.
It was a special travel guide that helped African-American families on their transcontinental journeys from the 1930s through the 1960s.
At the time, racial segregation was a major racial issue across the U.S. Racial tensions in some towns threatened to escalate into violence, making it even more important for traveling families to find safe and welcoming establishments.
Created by Victor Hugo Green, a black postal worker in Harlem, New York, the Green Book lists businesses that were safe and welcoming to black customers during a time of severe racial segregation.
After its publication, the book was quietly embraced within the black community for years.
Christine Cooper Lompato, a researcher and English professor at Utah State University, shared background information about the specific area of downtown Salt Lake City where Green Book operations once existed.
Related: Utah State University Professor Shares Information About Green Book Sites
“And having a good place, a safe place to stay, was really important to me,” she said in a 2023 interview.
About a year later, Lompato discovered new and surprising information: other travel guides aimed at black communities once existed.
“So I was surprised at first. I wasn’t necessarily shocked, because I thought it was a great idea,” Lompatto said.
This ultimately became a new research project for Lompato, but she’s not working on it alone.
She plans to enlist some USU students to help her research the travel guide and the businesses featured in it.
So far, researchers have used travel guide information to visit sites in Logan, Ogden, Kanab and Brigham City.
Lompatto said any information discovered will serve the specific purpose of shedding light on the history of Black people in Utah.
“All of this will be part of the Sema Hadisi African American Heritage Foundation’s traveling museum exhibit,” she said.
___
