A Parallel Road

Chilling. I went into it tabula rasa and encourage you to do likewise: allocate a chunk of time, start at the beginning, take your time looking at each uncaptioned photo. Recognize one or two. Look at the maps; at the 1940 Green Book pages. Try to imagine the courage it would take to set out blindly, passing through sunset towns, with only a hope of an address—not a single phone number that I could find. The courage required to list your private home in that book. (Marvel perhaps at the number of Beauty Parlor listings. Do people on road trips have that much need for hair care? Or, I wonder, was that code for something else?) Look at the people in the photos. Imagine stories for them—maybe happy ones? That helped me.

Know that at the end you will find an afterword and a list of photo credits / descriptions. Do not rush there: simply know that it'll be there for you. Then, when you finish your first pass, flip back and get a better understanding of the photos, the hopeful ones and the horrible ones. It is totally worth a second pass.