In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence, the Albany Museum of Art is present a first-of-its-kind exhibition connecting local history and visual art. Sense of Place: Green Book Sites in Albany, GA will focus on the notion of place and the historical sites that exist around us.
The Negro Motorist Green Book, written by Victor Hugo Green, was created out of the need for safe travel guidelines for Black people. The Green Book allowed Black people to navigate areas—especially in the Jim Crow-era South—with caution. It included safe gas stations, rest areas, restaurants, hotels, and tourist homes.
In Albany, from its first edition in 1937 to around 1945, four women registered their homes as tourist homes. Mrs. Aurelia Bentley, Mrs. Lula Davis, Mrs. Virginia Ross, and Mrs. Callie Washington opened their homes to travelers for lodging and refuge. While these four historic homes no longer exist or function as the homes they once were, the legacy of these four women as activists in their own right remains and deserves to be recognized.
Sense of Place: Green Book Sites in Albany, GA will feature photographs of the sites where these homes once stood, highlighting the history that surrounds us. Working with well-known community leader and photographer Adrian Jenkins, the AMA aims to bring pride to our local history, which spans from the pre-Civil Rights era to today.
