When we look at a Green Book listing, it can be easy to see only an address.

A business name. A street. A city.

But behind every address was a story.

There was a business owner who made the decision to open a space. There were employees who helped keep it running. …

When we walk into a museum, visit a historic site, or explore an archive, we often assume we are seeing the past exactly as it happened.

But history does not simply appear.

It is collected, preserved, interpreted, and shared.

The stories we encounter are shaped by …

Buried within the pages of the Green Book are addresses that tell stories much larger than the buildings themselves.

One of those places was the Excelsior Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, a site included in the 1963–64 and 1966–67 editions of the Green Book. …

When most people hear about the Green Book, they usually hear one story: a story about danger.

And to be clear, danger was absolutely part of the reality of Black travel during the Jim Crow era. Segregation structured American space in ways that made mobility …

History is often treated as something distant—something finished. But for me, history has always felt close, lived-in, and deeply connected to the present. I am a public historian because I believe the past is not just something we study; it is something we carry.