Greenish is a Brooklyn-based directory of businesses that prioritize the safety of Black lives.
Our Mission:
Establishing a new standard of care for Black consumers & businesses.
Presented by:
“Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over”
- Fannie Lou Hamer
Our collective is conducting a series of community-based, consumer and proprietor-centric assessments (townhalls, focus groups, etc.) where we will assess the safety needs for Black consumers and businesses in order to generate criteria for inclusion in Greenish. If businesses do not meet the criteria and they are Black-owned, Protect Black Business is developing an eco system of care for Black businesses who may need more resources, education, support to become listed in the book.
Starting with the following business categories:
Food (grocery, restaurants, farms, etc.)
Well-being (clinics, pharmacies, banks/financial institutions, schools, etc.)
Identity (Cultural institutions, consumer products, music, art, etc.)
Take our 5 minute survey!
The original Greenbook, The Negro Motorist Green Book (also The Negro Motorist Green-Book, The Negro Travelers' Green Book) was an annual guidebook for Black roadtrippers. It was originated and published by African American, New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, during the era of Jim Crow laws, when open and often legally prescribed discrimination against African Americans especially and other non-whites was widespread. Although pervasive racial discrimination and poverty limited black car ownership, the emerging African-American middle class bought automobiles as soon as they could, but faced a variety of dangers and inconveniences along the road, from refusal of food and lodging to arbitrary arrest. In response, Green wrote his guide to services and places relatively friendly to African-Americans, eventually expanding its coverage from the New York area to much of North America, as well as founding a travel agency.
Now in 2021, with the heightened visibility of violence against Black bodies, the resurgence of lynchings, and a global pandemic that falls squarely in the middle of the already existing de jure and de facto intersecting threats to the sustainability of Black lives, the need for an updated Green Book has never been so pervasive.