Driving While Black

November 1, 2019

The automobile fascinated 20th-century African Americans no less than others who grasped motoring as part of American identity. The automobile transformed African American life, expanding freedom of movement and opportunity and also supplying a notable weapon in the battle against segregation, argues Sorin (Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY). She situates cars in the history of black mobility from the antebellum era through the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and into the 21st century. For much of the time, slavery and segregation restricted black travel. But the automobile provided an enclosed, safe space beyond many of Jim Crow's indignities. But driving was not without inconvenience, harassment, danger, and even violence for blacks; entrenched racism meant drivers were accosted as they sought lodging or rest stops, Sorin explains. Well into the 21st century, risks, such as police profiling, continue. VERDICT Sorin's engaging account of black motoring exposes a rough road in race relations but also a technology's impact on black freedom. A great resource for people learning about black freedoms--and the fragility of those freedoms--in the automobile era and during the civil rights movement.--Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

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Starred review from November 18, 2019
Sorin, director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program in museum studies at SUNY Oneonta, depicts the historical relationship between African-Americans and the automobile as one of promise as well as peril in this insightful debut. Drawing upon archival research, interviews, and her own family’s history, Sorin emphasizes the strict limitations on mobility experienced by African-Americans from slavery’s Middle Passage through the Jim Crow era, and the extent to which access to a car meant freedom, at least temporarily. Though black motorists in the Jim Crow South had to rely on The Negro Motorist Green Book to locate gas stations, eateries, and motels that would serve them and to avoid “sundown towns” where they were at risk after dark, African-Americans viewed the car as an escape from the humiliation and dangers of segregated public transportation systems, Sorin writes. Car ownership, she contends, facilitated opportunities for travel and employment and provided African-Americans with a “rolling living room” to transport themselves from one “safe zone” to another. She illustrates how the increased confidence and broader horizons of black drivers fuelled the civil rights movement, while noting that the end of segregation doomed black-owned businesses that served the market. Lucidly written and generously illustrated with photos and artifacts, this rigorous and entertaining history deserves a wide readership.

December 15, 2019
How the automobile was both a machine of liberation and a potential peril for African Americans during the early decades of the 20th century--and beyond. In addition to offering an eye-opening history of the terrible discrimination practiced routinely against African American drivers, Sorin (Director, Cooperstown Graduate Program/SUNY; co-author: Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, 2008, etc.) also discusses her own family's years of distress driving from New Jersey to North Carolina to visit relatives in the late 1950s. In the first few decades of the 20th century, owning a car demonstrated economic success, and that was certainly the case for a growing black middle class. Moreover, driving in one's own car meant not having to adhere to the humiliating Jim Crow laws regarding seating in public transportation. The right to move about among the states had always been considered a fundamental constitutional right--the 1920 Supreme Court case United States v. Wheeler assured the "free ingress and egress to and from any other state"--but that was "a right denied to African Americans." While white Americans took to the road merrily, writes the author, they were "comfortable denying their black countrymen not only the right to travel freely but also the ability to use public accommodations"--and this is key in Sorin's powerful story. When her family traveled south, they were sure to pack plenty of food and blankets for the children so that they did not have to stop at segregated restaurants and risk being denied a place to sleep. The author provides an in-depth look at the significance of Victor Green's (literally) lifesaving The Green Book--inspired by Jewish travel guides--first published in 1936 and expanded over the decades, which became the bible for African American drivers hoping to find amenable accommodations in gas and repair services, restaurants, hotels, etc. The author also discusses how the car became a vehicle integral to the civil rights movement. A pleasing combination of terrific research and storytelling and engaging period visuals.

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