The Magnolia House, Greensboro, North Carolina

The Magnolia House in Greensboro, North Carolina, is a bed and breakfast today. When it opened in 1949 it was one of the few places in the area where African American travelers could find a room.

A hotel under Jim Crow

The house was built in 1889 and passed through a series of white owners before Louise and Arthur Gist bought it — its first African American owners — and opened it as a hotel for Black travelers. Under the laws and customs of Jim Crow, it was one of only a handful of places between Atlanta, Georgia, and Richmond, Virginia, where an African American traveler could stay.

In 1955 it first appeared in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the guide Victor Hugo Green published for African American travelers. It became a regular stop for Black athletes, entertainers, writers and scholars; its guests included Lena Horne, Ruth Brown, Satchel Paige, James Baldwin and Carter G. Woodson.

A meeting place for the movement

Besides meals and a safe bed on the road through the Jim Crow South, the Magnolia House gave activists of the modern civil rights movement a place to meet. It hosted events of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Democratic Club of Guilford County, and it welcomed the Freedom Riders.

Closed, saved, open again

The hotel ran into the 1970s, became a boarding home and then closed. Two decades later it was saved from demolition. It is now one of the few places listed in the Green Book that still stand and still take guests.

In 2023 the Magnolia House joined the African American Civil Rights Network. Created by the African American Civil Rights Act of 2017 and coordinated by the National Park Service, the network recognizes the civil rights movement and the sacrifices of those who fought discrimination and segregation, telling its story through public and private properties, facilities and programs.

Sources

• National Park Service, African American Civil Rights Network, "The Magnolia House (Greensboro, North Carolina)." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-magnolia-house-greensboro-north-carolina.htm
• The Magnolia House: https://www.thehistoricmagnoliahouse.org/
• Corrected: the page calls CORE the "Congress on Racial Equality"; its name is the Congress of Racial Equality.