Geographer Karl Raitz has described the American roadside as a public space open for everyone, but the roadside itself only represented private interests. Travel for Negroes inside the borders of the United States can become an experience so fraught with humiliation and unpleasantness that most colored people simply never think of a vacation in the same terms as the rest of America.

Through careful documented research, Sorin puts together a thorough timeline of the parallels between the introduction (and subsequent widespread adoption) of the car and the increasing social roles of Black people in America: This was a fascinating read.Īs the cover copy states, this book “reveals how the car – the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility – has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing lack families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road.”Īnd although a lot of this history may not have been unfamiliar to me, the manner of how these two topics were combined and presented was eye-opening for me, as a white reader. “Driving While Black” covers some of the history of American civil rights through the lens of automobiles and their overlap with social history. “home”.Īt the same time, I’m also committed to reading more BIPOC authors and topics, so toddled off to the library to see what I could track down on the shelves.

With the world in this state of flux (for all of the many different reasons), I’m really interested in learning more about the history and the lives of the many people who call the U.S.

Driving while black book