green book
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Odd Couples, Iconic Roles: W Magazine Kicks Off Awards Season with a Celebration of Best Performances
When the Golden Globes air on Sunday night, it will mark the start of the 2019 awards season—a season in which we are eagerly anticipating well-deserved recognition for 2018’s blockbuster, Black Panther, as well as keeping our eyes on honors for If Beale Street Could Talk, BlacKkKlansman, Sorry to Bother You, and more. And to…
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Green Book Has Great Acting, a Misleading Title and Palatable Racism for White People
When I sat down to watch the movie Green Book, I was expecting to get a visual education on the historical use of The Negro Motorist Green Book by Victor Hugo Green. Green published the guidebook from 1936 to 1966 for black travelers in the Jim Crow era whose trips took them through areas that…
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Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen on What Has Changed Since the Civil Rights Movement and Jim Crow
In the new film Green Book, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen play a black musical genius and the hard-nosed Italian he hires to drive him through the Jim Crow south on a concert tour. The Root recently sat down with both actors to get their take on the ways in which not much has changed…
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#TheRootTrip: The Great American Ice Experiment
Willie Wardell owns the Mighty Midget Mart Shell gas station, located at 4936 Albemarle Road in Charlotte, N.C., and he’s been in the convenience store business for the past 40 years. His store has everything that other gas stations in the neighborhood have, and he makes sure to price things competitively. But when I started…
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#TheRootTrip: Treat Yo’ Self at Atlanta’s Iwi Fresh Garden Day Spa
I wanna make this clear: Iwi Fresh Garden Day Spa at 341 Nelson St. SW in Atlanta is one of the best black-owned businesses I’ve ever visited. Point blank. What makes it the best? A number of things. Owner Yolanda Owens is a cool and beautiful sister (Alpha Kappa Alpha member, by the way) who’s…
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#TheRootTrip: A Former Tourist Home in SC Has Literally Gone to the (Dead) Dogs
Yeah, so lemme tell you about my trip to Greenville, S.C. My task was to find the Dr. Gibbs Tourist Home, located at 914 Anderson Road, and I was excited because I thought that if this person was a doctor, I was pretty sure that he or she would have a pretty impressive home that…
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#TheRootTrip: Former Tourist Home in Atlanta Retains Some Signs of Its Past Glory
In the 1957 Negro Motorist Green Book, the Connally Tourist Home is located just a block away from Morris Brown College in Atlanta and is a multistory home that was common in the late 19th century. But I was interested in it because it was the first tourist home on this trip that I could…
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#TheRootTrip: In Atlanta, a Mystery. Who Was Ma Sutton?
In the short time that I have to research these Green Book spots, the hardest ones tend to be those that were owned by black women. Even when they’re called “famous” or dubbed as “must visits” in historical documents, the details about the lives of these female entrepreneurs are often either lost or hard to…
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#TheRootTrip: Ga. on My Mind
Another night on the road, another black-owned hotel stay. This time it was the Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta North/Alpharetta in Alpharetta, Ga., right outside of Atlanta. And yet again, the property is owned by the Capstone Development Group. But Atlanta has a few black-owned hotel options, including properties owned by Robert Johnson (founder and former…
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#TheRootTrip: Chillin’ in Style in Birmingham, Ala.
More chillin’ at a black-owned hotel! This one is the Residence Inn by Marriott Birmingham Downtown at the University of Alabama-Birmingham at 821 20th St. South, and it’s another property held by the black-owned Capstone Development Investment Group. Back in 2013, the group purchased this seven-story, 129-room hotel for $20 million in cash. You’ve gotta…