This location/address (1329 E Washington Street) is listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book (1954 edition), and was listed under the category of restaurants and was called "The Hut." 

The Hut

Contributor

Project
Background: 

In American culture, the automobile has long since
been a symbol of freedom and mobility for Americans everywhere. In the 1930’s
and due to the rising African-American middle class, Victor Hugo Green, New Yorker
and U.S. mailman, saw a need for a travel guide for the Black community and
created the first edition of the Negro
Motorist Green Book (NMGB) which was first published in 1936. According to
the 1940 edition, “there were thousands of ‘sundown towns,’ towns where African
Americans were barred from spending the night…at all”; therefore, the NMGB was
a vital tool for the Black community throughout the U.S. for decades until the “civil
rights laws of the 60’s brought about the end of legal segregation.” Although
Green was able to expand his book to a successful travel reservation business,
he also hoped for a time when the book would not be necessary for the Black
community. 

According to Dr. Wallace Best who is a professor of
Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, “a Black body in motion is never without consequence. It is
always a signifier of something, scripted and coded. And for the most part,
throughout our history Black bodies in motion have been deemed a threat” (“The
Fear of Black Bodies in Motion”). Best is writing of Black bodies of the past,
those who were part of the Great Migration and the movement toward freedom for
the Black race, and of the present; Best mentions certain names like Michael
Brown and Levar Jones, victims of police brutality, whose fates have fueled the
current Black Lives Matter Movement. It is obvious that Green was aware that
Black bodies in motion appeared to be a threat to white society, but he was
also aware that this idea of a Black body as a threat meant there would be
plenty of potential threats waiting for Black travelers if they did not have
the information they needed. Although Green never explicitly alluded to
potential dangers nor the Black family’s own fear to travel as he explained the
usefulness of his book, the Negro
Motorist Green Book did in fact attempt to alleviate the chance of any
danger, fear, or embarrassment for its users. 

A children’s book titled Ruth and the Green Book (2010) was written by Calvin A. Ramsey and
provides a fictional account of a young girl and her family traveling in the
1950’s from her home in Chicago to her grandmother’s house in rural Alabama. In
the book, the family uses the NMGB to
help them navigate their travels to avoid danger and/or embarrassment due to
racism, while also finding places where they could enjoy themselves during
their trip and along the way.

Continuing
the Project:

This project of incorporating the Negro Motorist Green Book locations into the Clio entries of West Virginia started at Marshall University and
was the result of a course project assigned by English Professor, Dr. Kristen
Lillvis, in her class titled ENG 628: The Black Lives Matter Movement. This
project is currently employing the addresses located in two copies of the NMGB (1940 and 1954) to site and pin
potential locations where these businesses and establishments may have actually
existed according to various editions of the book. This project intends to
promote awareness of such an empowering aspect of the Black community’s history
in American society that goes overlooked and unknown to most. However, this is
only a start, as this project could evolve into an even greater opportunity to
research and locate actual buildings and establishments in West Virginia that
have served, during the Jim Crow Era, as “pleasure resorts,” as Green wrote in
the 1940 edition for the Black American community (2). According to Candacy Taylor, a writer, photographer and cultural
critic, it has been estimated “that less than one-third of these sites are
still standing.” Taylor is currently working on a project in Los Angeles to
locate establishments listed in the NMGB and views “these buildings as physical
evidence of racial discrimination [and her project as a] rich opportunity to
re-examine America’s troubled history of segregation, Black migration and the
rise of the Black leisure class.” In a state that made its name based on its
refusal to participate in the slavery of another human being, I feel uncovering
these buildings of our past will provide insight for our future as a people and
as a state. 

&nbsp;

West Virginia cities in which establishments offered
services to Black travelers (1940 Ed.):

<ul><li>Beckley,
Bluefield, Charleston, Fairmont, Huntington, Harpers Ferry, Welch, Wheeling </li></ul>

West Virginia cities in which establishments offered
services to Black travelers (1954 Ed.):

<ul><li>Beckley,
Bluefield, Charleston, Chester, Clarksburg, Fairmont, Grafton, Hinton,
Huntington , Institute, Keystone, Kimball, Montgomery, Morgantown, Moundsville,
Northfork, Parkersburg, Princeton, Weirton, Welch, Wheeling, White Sulphur
Springs, Williamson </li></ul>

Map highlighting establishments offering services to
Black travelers throughout the U.S. (1956 Ed.):

<ul><li>www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Dh4EC0glByrNgb95JJpHrcMKiOs&amp;hl=en&amp;ll=37.82619039911634%2C-83.72298254687496&amp;z=9</li></ul>

Other editions of the book ranging from the 30’s to
the late 60’s can be found in the NYPL Digital Collections: 

<ul><li>&nbsp;<a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=about" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=about</a></li></ul>

This location/address (1329 E Washington Street) is listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book (1954 edition), and was listed under the category of restaurants and was called "The Hut." This means that an actual establishment may still exist or could have been demolished and/or altered over time, but an establishment did in fact exist in this area at one time and it provided service to Black American travelers during the era of Jim Crow laws. The NMGB was necessary due to the prevalence of racial discrimination and the lack of knowledge available to the Black community informing them of remaining segregated businesses and towns; however, the book itself was an empowering tool for the Black community which enabled mobility and also provided safety for those traveling throughout the United States. 

Negro Motorist Green Book Listing- The Hut

Originating first as a buffalo trail adopted by Native Americans for east-west tavel, today the Midland Trail remains an important route of travel across West Virginia.

The Hut

Introduction

Sources