Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights
by Gretchen Sorin
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"How the automobile fundamentally changed African American life-the true history beyond the Best Picture-winning movie. The ultimate symbol of independence and possibility, the automobile has shaped this country from the moment the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford's assembly line. Yet cars have always held distinct importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the show more open road. Gretchen Sorin recovers a forgotten history of black motorists, and recounts their creation of a parallel, unseen world of travel guides, black only hotels, and informal communications networks that kept black drivers safe. At the heart of this story is Victor and Alma Green's famous Green Book, begun in 1936, which made possible that most basic American right, the family vacation, and encouraged a new method of resisting oppression. Enlivened by Sorin's personal history, Driving While Black opens an entirely new view onto the African American experience, and shows why travel was so central to the Civil Rights movement"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
If I were a black person, I think I would be in a rage 24 hours a day, seven days a week because of the constant indignities that are showered onto African-Americans. This book about black Americans simply trying to take a vacation or conduct business on the road from 1900 through the 1970's, is so fraught with danger and discrimination that it takes your breath away.
The author shows how the automobile was an early symbol of freedom for African-Americans, and how a whole parallel travel industry grew up to cater to their needs and help them to navigate journeys through racist America.
The author weaves her story in with her own personal experiences traveling with her family in the 1950's and 1960's. This is a part of American history show more that needs to be remembered. show less
The author shows how the automobile was an early symbol of freedom for African-Americans, and how a whole parallel travel industry grew up to cater to their needs and help them to navigate journeys through racist America.
The author weaves her story in with her own personal experiences traveling with her family in the 1950's and 1960's. This is a part of American history show more that needs to be remembered. show less
A detailed and fascinating history of the car and the effect it had on racial barriers erected by Jim Crow. It focuses primarily on the difficulty African American drivers hard when they were frequently turned away from bathrooms, hotels, and restaurants along the road. These difficulties lead to all sorts of survival mechanism, culminating in the Green Book, the quintessential guide to travel in the United States.
A great read! A very revealing and nuanced dissection of a truly American pass time - the road trip and how the freedom of the open road was experience differently by people of different backgrounds.
A great read! A very revealing and nuanced dissection of a truly American pass time - the road trip and how the freedom of the open road was experience differently by people of different backgrounds.
Winner of the Society of Automotive Historians 2021 Award of Distinction
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- Driving While Black: Race, Space, and Mobility in America
- Epigraph
- Good roads beckon to you and me, daily we grow more motor-wise. The nomad in the poorest and the mightiest of us, sends us behind the wheel, north, south, east, and west, in answer to the call of the road....[T]here is still... (show all) a small cloud that stands between us and complete motor-travel freedom. On the trail, this cloud rarely troubles us in the mornings, but as the afternoon wears on it casts a shadow of apprehension on our hearts and sours us a little. "Where," it asks us, "will you stay tonight?" - Alfred Edgar Smith, "Through the Windshield," Opportunity, 1933
We obtained the most important book needed for Negroes who traveled anywhere in the United States. It was called the Green Book. The "Green Book" was the bible of every Negro highway traveler in the 1950s and early 1960s. ... (show all)You literally didn't dare leave home without it. -- Earl Hutchinson Sr., A Colored Man's Journey Through 20th Century Segregated America - Dedication
- For Alvenia Wooten Sullivan (1919-2009) and Clyde Eugene Sullivan (1909-1983) Strivers, Nurturers, Storytellers And for Gary (1954-1992), with whom I shared a childhood
- First words
- Since the beginning of the twentieth century, no feature of modern life has been more emblematic of, or deeply connected to, American identity and the American dream than the automobile.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)If nothing else, my hope is that this book contributes to that understanding, and that dialogue.
- Blurbers
- Ruffins, Faith Davis; Sugrue, Thomas J.; Burns, Ric; Wilder, Craig Steven
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Travel, Politics and Government, History
- DDC/MDS
- 323.1196 — Society, government, & culture Political science Civil Rights & Liberties/ Human Rights Minority Politics Specific Groups Biography And History African Origin
- LCC
- E185.61 .S667 — History of the United States United States Elements in the population Afro-Americans Status and development since emancipation
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 144
- Popularity
- 227,850
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.11)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 2
