On Jim Crow roads, the lifeline wasn’t a law, it was a gas station. Esso used maps, credit, and a nationwide dealer network to turn the Green Book into safe miles.
This video traces how Victor Green’s community guide met corporate distribution, why James A. Jackson at Standard Oil of New Jersey pushed dealers to stock the book, and how Black‑owned Esso stations, credit cards, and Touring Service maps helped families outsmart a thousand local rules from sundown towns to “restrooms for customers only.”
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