The directory was a post–civil rights era relative of what is commonly called the Green Book (1936–66),an annual travelers’ guide that helped African Americans find safe, reliable places to eat, sleep, and visit during segregation. The Green Book helped protect African Americans from the threat of racist violence during Jim Crow, but by the mid-1970s, when the American Black Directory was first printed, interstate travel for African Americans had become much safer, and segregated facilities had been found unconstitutional. The focus shifted to patronizing Black-owned businesses rather than identifying roadside amenities that catered to African American travelers.

The American BlackDirectory was compiled by Lesly Gatheright Jr. (b. 1945), an activist and Black business advocate originally from Quitman County, Mississippi. An insurance broker by trade, Gatheright traveled across the country in 1974 to research what would become the directory. On its cover the directorystates its case, claiming to be the “final tie between national economic growth and productive unity” and promising to “direct over a billion dollars to Black businesses.”

By the mid-1970s, the Black Power movement and arguments to “buy Black” had become part of mainstream Black culture, and the directory reflected this zeitgeist in its marketing. In the post–civil rights era, many Black-owned businesses struggled to continue operating in the face of urban renewal projects in major cities that destroyed majority-Black neighborhoods, as well as the decreased need for Black-only spaces post-segregation. According to the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibition about the Green Book, half of the businesses listed in that directory had closed by the mid-1970s.

In this first edition of the American Black Directory, from 1975, there are listings for six New Orleans businesses, including Mason’s Motel International at 3923 Melpomene Avenue (now Hotel Hope), Gemini Record and Tape Center on Felicity Street, and Rudy and Clay’s Bus Stop on what is now Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. Gatheright published a 1976 edition, but after that the print history for the directory is unclear. There is, however, a recent online edition, which includes Bullet’s Sports Bar at 2441 A. P. Tureaud Avenue and the Prime Example at 1909 North Broad Street.

African American directories are highly desirable and scarce collectors’ items, and with this acquisition HNOC now has five in its collection. The earliest of these five is the 1914 Woods’ Directory, and until this acquisition the latest was the 1955–56 Crescent City Sepia Host. HNOC also has the 1942 edition of the Travel Guide of Negro Hotels and Guest Houses and the Negro Travelers’ Green Book for 1955, both of which, like the American Black Directory, are national in scope and help contextualize Black New Orleans businesses within that setting.