9. The Green Book published comments from correspondents it dispatched to different areas
In addition to the listings of businesses, the Green Book published notes from correspondents which described attitudes and demographics in certain areas. The 1948 edition carried the report of a correspondent at Dickinson, North Dakota. “Ignorance is the root of prejudice, the unnamed writer submitted, “There is a special type of ignorance in this section regarding Negroes”. The writer goes on to explain that there were few Blacks in North Dakota generally, and that because of the lack of Blacks in the area, “…a colored person is still a curiosity”. The writer nonetheless asserts that the majority of Dickinson’s presumably white-owned businesses would cater to Black customers, because, “North Dakotans, generally, are friendly”.
Another correspondent, from Shelby, Montana, wrote though the majority of the businesses in the community would serve Black customers, none wanted to list their names in a guide which indicated that they were advertising for more Black customers. Their concern, according to the correspondent, was “fear of finding all touring Negroes near here overcrowding the facilities to the exclusion of old customers”. The same correspondent claimed that, “A pretty reasonable attitude exists here, but we have had so few colored people in this area that I would hesitate to say to what extent many more would be at liberty to come and go without running into difficulty”.