There was a Green Book?

I know a little about history. I won't say I "KNOW" history because neither I nor any other person who didn't live in a given time has encyclopedic knowledge of any  time period though some come close.  My parents told me about certain things which were realities of the segregated south of their youth and early adulthood. I was told about "sundown towns" which garnered that name because blacks could not be there after sundown for fear of their own safety.  I was told about restrooms, restaurants, hotels and motels where black business was NOT accepted and about clothing stores where black clients couldn't even try on articles of clothing they wanted to buy.
        My parents and some of my teachers who had survived the same thing told me about their experiences, but NONE of them ever mentioned The Green Book. The Green book was written by a former Pullman porter (rail road worker) who compiled a list of every black friendly hotel and restaurant in the south and published it in the north and midwest and made a nice chunk of change doing so.
   
        In 2018 a film by the same title examines race relations in America circa 1962. Our protagonist ISN'T a black motorist going across the south, but rather a Bronx tough guy who occasionally works as muscle for the mob who lands a temporary assignment as a chauffeur  a black concert pianist who is embarking on a tour of the deep south.  For simplicity's sake, let's call him by his Bronx moniker "Tony Lip". Tony earns this name because of his ability to seeming charm and BS virtually anyone.  Tony's character is supposed to represent the average working class white guy. He doesn't HATE black people per say, but his only knowledge of them is based on superficial contact & stereotypes. He embraces black music and what he perceives to be black "culture" without knowing any actual black people.
      Enter Doctor Sally a black piano prodigy who has been playing piano since the age of 3.  Tony travels throughout the midwest and later the south with Dr. Sally and discovers quite a bit about himself and his attitudes about his fellow man. Over the eight week odyssey Tony learns about elements of the black experience that he never knew existed that chances are most white people didn't know existed in the south for blacks at the time.
      I've always enjoyed the films of Spike Lee and Spike both HATED and dismissed this film as a white knight saving a helpless black man. I saw this film and disagree with Spike. I saw a  guy realizing that he didn't get it and neither did most of the people he knew.  Dr. Sally didn't need "rescue" he was in fact the person signing Tony's paycheck, the guy living in (as Tony put it) in a castle.  Dr. Sally's talent segregated him from most blacks and the color of his skin segregated him from everyone else.  In the course of the 8 weeks that Tony and Dr. Sally do their own version of "Driving Miss Daisy" in reverse, Tony and Dr. Sally grow and form a friendship and both are richer for it.  I'd recommend this film as a fun piece of history as it's based on two people who actually existed and no one dies in the course of the film. I recommend it as a nice buddy pic for anyone who knows what it's like to learn about someone else on an interpersonal level and make an honest to goodness friend.