However, the report notes, the sites are vulnerable, “as many African American historical sites are at risk of disappearing, “
Thirty years of Michigan-based listings in the Green Book are the basis for the statewide hunt for the surviving sites so that they can take their place in state history.
African Americans relied on the Green Book from 1936 to the mid-1960s as a segregation-era travel aide to find everything from a beauty shop on Hastings Street in Detroit’s vibrant Paradise Valley to a rooming house on what might be a days-long drive to the famed Idlewild resort near Baldwin, just a few miles from Woodland Park.
Thanks to the guide, Black travelers in Michigan learned they could count on a safe and friendly welcome at Parkview Cabins in Mackinac City, a fishing store in Three Rivers and scores of rooming houses in still-rural places like Hartford and Grand Junction.
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A year of research starting this month will help to ferret out details on all of those sites and nearly 100 more out of the 230 locations listed in Michigan’s pages of the Green Book. By the time work concludes in early 2027, one of the sites will be submitted for the National Register of Historic Places.
The project is part of a larger initiative to expand the inclusion of underrepresented communities in Michigan’s National Register-listed properties. Funding comes from a $75,000 grant from the National Parks Service through its initiative dedicated to preserving African American civil rights history.
While research and documentation is the early focus, the state has aspirations of boosting interaction with the sites, said Nathan Nietering of the state’s historic preservation office.
“Our goal is that these efforts will lead to more, like community-led programming, tours and other opportunities to further elevate these important, previously undertold stories,” Nietering said.
“It’s too early to know what new initiatives may result, but we’re excited to see them unfold.”
The Green Book
The National Parks Service estimates that fewer than 20% of the nation’s Green Book listings still exist.
Well-known destinations like Detroit, Flint and Ann Arbor were well represented in the Green Books. But smaller towns across Michigan also had safe places for travelers seeking services, like rooming houses where travelers stopped on their way to resorts — a journey that, without interstate highways, could take a few days.
“We know a lot about cities in Michigan and historic places that are important in these cities,” state project manager Katie Kolokithas said. They’re important to this initiative, she added, but “we wanted to try to find some of these places that we think are still out there we just don’t know yet. “
One of the fun aspects to the early research, Kolokithas said, has been finding Green Book sites all over the state, from New Buffalo to Mackinaw City.
A private house in Grindstone City, at the tip of Michigan’s Thumb area, “looks just the same as it did in historic photos. So that’s pretty cool.”
‘We may never know some of them’
Less encouraging is learning how many of the historic sites no longer remain in larger cities. Those in Paradise Valley and Black Bottom districts of Detroit were demolished to make way for I-375. One site is standing in Flint. In Lansing, Kolokithas said, “everything has been demolished.”
“We’re kind of coming to terms with the fact that we may never know some of them, because a lot, especially in the rural parts of Michigan, didn’t have physical addresses,” Kolokithas said.
Even local historic societies know little about some sites, further driving the urgency to discover what remains and document it for the future.
Kefentse Chike, assistant professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University, said that Green Book sites in Detroit and Idlewild attracted people from around the country.
“Not only celebrities, but scholars, politicians and a whole host of people.”
But recreation was only one aspect of the travel guide, Chike emphasized. Car travel increased starting in the 1930s, making it easier to visit family across the US, including in the South. African Americans “had to be mindful to avoid” the so-called “sundown towns” when they weren’t safe after dark, he said.
“The Green Book would help people know where they can stop, go to the bathroom, rent a hotel,” Chike said. “I remember hearing stories as a child about taking these trips, and … packing a lunch because they knew once they got to a certain point, they could not go into restaurants.”
Also notable at Woodland Park and Idlewild resorts is how they thrived not just as vacation communities but as places where African Americans could buy land and build cottages during a time when segregation laws and lending discrimination capped housing options for Black Americans, including in Michigan.
“They couldn’t buy a home because of the Jim Crow rules and regulations, and so when they were afforded the opportunity to actually buy their own land and build their own house, they jumped at it, “ Shakir said of Woodland Park’s early residents.
It’s important for people to know that history, Chike said.
The vestiges of segregation still exist in racism, Chike said, “and I think we need to be mindful of that … and how African Americans responded to those challenges.”
