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This location/address (1035 Chapline Street) is listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book (1954 edition) as a restaurant and was called the Blue Goose.

The Blue Goose

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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. 

&nbsp;

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. 

&nbsp;

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.

&nbsp;

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 (1035 Chapline Street) is listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book (1954 edition) as a restaurant and was called the Blue Goose. 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 Blue Goose

This walking tour travels down Main and Market Street and includes numerous historic buildings and landmarks before heading back towards the starting point. Wheeling has a rich history, serving as the location of the conventions that made West Virginia a new state, the two-time capital of West Virginia, and an industrial epicenter of West Virginia.

The Blue Goose

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