As a child, I remember taking road trips from Norfolk to Baltimore and New York to visit family members, and we almost always traveled by car. On these trips, I remember my grandmother cooking right before we left so we would have something to eat while on the road. The cooler would be packed to the brim with pastrami sandwiches, fried chicken, containers of potato salad, rolls, fruit, and some sort of dessert. Back then, I didn’t think much about it; I just assumed my nana didn’t want to stop on the road and prolong an already lengthy trip.

Now I realize that she was continuing a practice many African Americans used while traveling in the Jim Crow era: the shoebox lunch. Perhaps she did not want to stop in areas that were considered unsafe in the Green Book.

The Negro Motorists Green Book, more commonly known as the Green Book, was a guidebook for African American travelers from 1936-1996, written by Victor Hugo Green. Green, a postal worker in New York, published the book in order to note locations around the country that were safe to eat, have a car fixed, sleep for an evening, or even simply to get gas; he eventually included Mexico, parts of Canada, and Bermuda. In short, the intent was to help travelers safely get to their destination.

During this time period, not only were segregation laws enforced, it was often unsafe for African Americans to travel in their cars, particularly in areas of the South, and motorists had to take extreme measures for basic necessities such as bringing buckets and portable toilets in their cars to avoid potential confrontations at roadside restrooms.

In Virginia, over 300 businesses were listed, with approximately only one-third of the buildings still in existence. In Richmond, several Black-owned businesses were listed, including the Eggleston Hotel located on the corner of 2nd and Leigh Streets in Jackson Ward, which in addition to hotel rooms, also had dining rooms and a dance floor. Notable guests who spent time there included Jackie Robinson, James Brown, the Temptations, Muhammad Ali, and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, who ate breakfast in the dining room on his way to the March on Washington in 1964.

The Historic Magnolia House in Greensboro, North Carolina, formerly known as Magnolia House Motel and Daniel D.Debutts House, opened in 1949 and accommodated African American travelers who were not allowed to share accommodations, dining areas and drinking facilities with white travelers. It was one of the only hotels between Atlanta, Georgia and Richmond that allowed them to stay overnight in the mid-20th century. The hotel closed for a period of time before it was purchased by Samuel Penn Pass in 1995. In 2018, his daughter, Natalie Pass-Miller, and her husband, Devin Miller, acquired the property and today, the Historic Magnolia House is fully restored.

“When we think about and evaluate the history of Magnolia House, one of the things that is important is that we’re not educating what’s in textbooks,” says Pass-Miller. “We’re making sure we share that story. [The Green Book] kept folks from being lynched, being pulled over, that’s a big part of the overall story that has to be represented.”

One way that Pass-Miller educates visitors is through the shoebox meals that are often served at various events. “The matriarch in the family would take a piece of fried chicken, a pound cake … they put it in a shoebox, and that fed everyone,” says Pass-Miller.

Of course, a shoebox was not the only container used, and those would vary from person to person. But “for individual leisure or business travel, the mode was always discretion, and dignity while consuming food was of utmost importance. A slice of layer cake doesn’t carry well and requires a utensil, but a wax paper-wrapped sweet potato pie slice doesn’t,” wrote Nicole Taylor in her Eater article, “How ‘Shoebox Lunches’ Made Black Travel Possible During Jim Crow.”

Today, the Department of Historic Resources, Department of Transportation and Virginia Tourism Corporation are designating Green Book historical site markers throughout the state. The first location to have a site marker is the Bay Shore Hotel at Buckroe Beach in Hampton. The hotel had 70 rooms and boasted a dance hall, which attracted musical greats like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

It saddens me to think that my grandmother felt that she had to pack lunches to help keep us safe in the late 1980s, but unfortunately, it is highly likely that her fears were not unfounded, as we are all aware of instance after instance of unprovoked violence against people because of the color of their skin.

However, I take comfort in knowing her concerns were founded not only in love, but in creativity and resilience. African Americans found a way to live their lives where they could show their children different parts of the country on vacation, or simply visit family members who moved north. The determination to live their lives as normally as possible is something I think about whenever I get behind the wheel of a car.

And although we’ve come so far, we still have a long way to go.