EMU history professor Mark Metzler Sawin is part of the team helping uncover the past behind a Harrisonburg, Virginia, house listed in the Green Book guide.
The professor is working alongside James Madison University faculty members Mollie Godfrey and Carole Nash, and with JMU Libraries.
A feature story about the partnership between the two universities and their work was published online this month in Madison Magazine, the official publication of JMU. Click here for the story by Josette Keelor.
According to Keelor’s story, the Ida Mae Francis Tourist House, at 252 N. Mason St., dates to the early 1900s and “has witnessed at least three distinct eras — as a successful woman-owned boarding house, a Green Book safe place for Black travelers and the lifelong home of siblings Henry and Lois Rouser.” It’s welcomed such guests as prominent inventor and scientist George Washington Carver and members of Duke Ellington’s and Count Basie’s bands.
In the 1950s and early ’60s, the house was listed in several editions of the Green Book, a guide featuring businesses across the nation that welcomed Black travelers during Jim Crow (Department of Historic Resources). The house became known as a safe place to stay when coming to or passing through Harrisonburg, and is the city’s last remaining Green Book-listed property.
“Now, more than 60 years later, JMU and EMU faculty are sifting through rooms of documents, photos and decor that will add depth to the stories that helped define a community,” Keelor writes in her story.
“Sawin has been putting together the story of the house, while Nash, some of her students and Godfrey fill in the gaps through the larger context of the history of the neighborhood and city,” she adds.
Harrisonburg Mayor Deanna Reed, whose father William Reed recently inherited the house, remarked on the importance of the partnership.
“It has allowed us to preserve this history,” she said in the Madison story. “We couldn’t have done this without the support of both universities.”
More stories about the historic Ida M. Francis House
WHSV (Aug. 7, 2024) — “Harrisonburg Mayor partners with JMU to preserve Green Book location“
Daily News-Record (Aug. 1, 2024) — “Reed, JMU Work To Save Historic House“
WMRA (May 2024) — “Historic ‘Green Book’ house being preserved in Harrisonburg“
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