DN:FILM The Green Book: Guide To Freedom

Best Picture winner “Green Book” was named after the indispensable guides responsible for steering African American motorists to black-owned and other safe establishments; but you wouldn’t be alone if you thought the book deserved more attention than it received on screen. “Despite the title of the film,” says The Root's Tonja Renée Stidhum, “not one black person is seen actually touching the book.” Traveling through Jim Crow America was complicated and often dangerous; Yoruba Richen’s documentary THE GREEN BOOK: GUIDE TO FREEDOM, airing on the Smithsonian Channel, explores the impact these guides had on the African American communities they served; guide founder Victor Hugo Green recognized the need to bolster black entrepreneurship and keep motorists safe from racist violence, and his publications contributed to both those ideas. Richen’s doc, an efficient 51 minutes long, is as the Atlantic's Hannah Giorgis puts it, “a generous, complex exploration of the artifact’s practical function and its cultural legacy.”

Also, for anyone wishing to view the actual books, the Schomburg Center has access to digitized versions, as well as a research guide and an interactive map with 796 original Green Book establishment addresses; you can even map your own trip. It’s an amazing, deep, time-traveling dive into a fascinating document.