Racial Dynamism in Los Angeles, 1900–1964: The Role of the Green Book

Frank Norris, is a Los Angeles native now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a National Park Service historian associated with the agency's National Trails Intermountain Region office, which has a role in administering the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program (https://www.ncptt.nps.gov/rt66/route-66-and-the-historic-negro-motorist-green-book/). In the course of researching an earlier article, “Courageous Motorists: African American Pioneers on Route 66,” New Mexico Historical Review 90:3 (Summer 2015): 293–332, he was intrigued to notice that (1) Los Angeles attitudes toward African Americans seemed to always be changing, and (2) Los Angeles has a remarkable, but largely unknown, inventory of standing Green Book structures—silent witnesses to the city's mid-century racial attitudes. The current article explores those discoveries.