May 07, 2020 - Sale 2534

Sale 2534 - Lot 191

Price Realized: $ 27,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(BUSINESS.) 17th Year Afro-American's Travel Guide. [36] pages. Printed pamphlet, 9 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches, original yellow and black wrappers, minor wear; minor dampstaining; original owner's name and address on inside rear wrapper. Baltimore, MD: Travel Bureau, Afro-American Newspapers, [1957]
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

This annual guidebook was published by the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, competing with the famous Negro Motorist's Green Book. It lists more than a thousand hotels and other businesses "providing accommodations for the colored traveler," in addition to numerous advertisements. Most of the 50 states are represented, in addition to numerous motels in Canada and the Caribbean, and 3 pages of listings for camps.
While this guide is undated, the first edition was apparently issued as a single-sheet map. The 9 May 1942 issue of the Afro-American announces the imminent publication of their "second annual travel map." That would place this 17th edition in 1957, which fits with an ad on the final page which shows ballplayer Roy Campanella in his Brooklyn Dodgers cap. The team moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, and Campanella's playing career was ended by an automobile accident that same winter. The Afro-American's Travel Guide is considerably scarcer than the more well-known Green Book; we have not traced any editions at auction beyond the 1942 single-sheet map. This copy was owned by a New Jersey minister; he has marked one Newark hotel with an asterisk and circled another one in North Carolina