Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance

by Mia Bay

Overview

Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the David J. Langum Prize
Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award
Winner of the Order of the Coif Book Award
Winner of the OAH Liberty Legacy Foundation Award
A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of the Year

“This extraordinary book is a powerful addition to the history of travel segregation…Mia Bay shows that Black mobility has always been a struggle.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist

“In Mia Bay’s superb history of mobility and resistance, the question of literal movement becomes a way to understand the civil rights movement writ large.”
—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

“Traveling Black is well worth the fare. Indeed, it is certain to become the new standard on this important, and too often forgotten, history.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of Stony the Road

From Plessy v. Ferguson to #DrivingWhileBlack, African Americans have fought to move freely around the United States. But why this focus on Black mobility? From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, Traveling Black explores when, how, and why racial restrictions took shape in America and brilliantly portrays what it was like to live with them.

Mia Bay rescues forgotten stories of passengers who made it home despite being insulted, stranded, re-routed, or ignored. She shows that Black travelers never stopped challenging these humiliations, documenting a sustained fight for redress that falls outside the traditional boundaries of the civil rights movement. A riveting, character-rich account of the rise and fall of racial segregation, it reveals just how central travel restrictions were to the creation of Jim Crow laws—and why free movement has been at the heart of the quest for racial justice ever since.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674278622
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2023
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	602,294
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mia Bay is the author of To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells and The White Image in the Black Mind, and coauthor of Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents. She is Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Road to Plessy 18

How Travel Segregation Took Shape

2 Traveling by Train 63

The Jim Crow Car

3 Traveling by Car 107

Race on the Road in the Automotive Age

4 Traveling by Bus 151

From the Jim Crow Car to the Back of the Bus

5 Traveling by Plane 192

Segregation in the Age of Aviation

6 Traveling for Civil Rights 230

The Long Fight to Outlaw Transportation Segregation

7 Traveling for Freedom 268

The Desegregation of American Transportation

Epilogue 306

#BlackTravelMatters

Notes 323

Acknowledgments 373

Illustration Credits 375

Index 377

Editorial Reviews

Mia Bay is one of America’s foremost intellectual and social historians, and her deft treatment of the personal indignities and structural inequities that beset African American travelers rearranges our understanding of the racial dimensions of one of our country’s most sacred rights—the right of free movement. In Bay’s telling, Black travelers emerge as innovators and early adopters of new transportation technologies, out of both social necessity and a dogged commitment to resisting every limit placed on their right to self-determination. She reminds us, as the best historians always do, that for African Americans you cannot understand the destination without sustained attention to the journey.

Brittney Cooper

This extraordinary book is a powerful addition to the history of travel segregation. Traveling Black reveals how travel discrimination transformed over time from segregated trains to buses and Uber rides. Mia Bay shows that Black mobility has always been a struggle.

Ibram X. Kendi

Bay gives us an insightful history of travel segregation for Black people from the late 19th century to the 1960s…You’ll come away from Bay’s book with the realization that for every Rosa Parks…there were countless and unknown Black men and women in segregated America who lived and traveled with determination, resistance, and dignity.

Fodor’s Travel

A deep dive into the history of Black resistance to travel segregation…Bay offers a wealth of detail, reminding readers that for every Rosa Parks there are thousands of less famous people engaged in the same struggle, all worthy of having their stories told.

Christian Century

Meticulously examines how, with the arrival of each successive form of transportation technology—from those stagecoaches and trains to cars to buses to planes—there was hope on the part of African Americans (and their allies) that the invention would result in a fairer and more equitable system. But each time, white supremacy found its way into the new sphere.

Car and Driver

A well-guided scholarly journey through Black travel experiences from the antebellum period to the present…Effectively organized, carefully argued, and meticulously researched, Traveling Black makes a significant contribution to the literature by tracing how the struggle over segregated travel ultimately led to the desegregation of all public spaces—one of the most important achievements of the civil rights movement.

Southwestern Historical Quarterly - Karen Kossie-Chernyshev

Traveling Black is a stunning achievement that promises to transform our understanding of the character and importance of segregated travel. Based on prodigious research, its richly textured and insightful narrative takes us on a fascinating and eye-opening journey of discovery along the roads and rails of Jim Crow America.

Raymond Arsenault

In America, freedom so often is ‘just another word for’ the right to go where we want to go. Yet as Mia Bay reveals in her dynamic history, African Americans have rarely enjoyed this right without the strings—or stings—of discrimination, whether by law or custom, intimidation, or outright violence. At the core of her story is the struggle over human dignity itself. Bay takes us on a journey from the caprices of the early color line in the antebellum North to the harrowing experiences of ‘driving while Black’ today. Bay shows that the civil rights movement has much deeper roots than many imagine and its movements have long tracked the battle for safe and equal access to the rights of passage. Traveling Black is well worth the fare. Indeed, it is certain to become the new standard on this important, and too often forgotten, history.

Henry Louis Gates

American identity is inextricably linked to freedom of movement. But for much of the nation’s history, black Americans have been barred from fully enjoying this freedom…Based on firsthand accounts and comprehensive archival research, Traveling Black details the manifest ways in which black Americans responded to limitations on their mobility.

Smithsonian

Fantastic…both a richly detailed history of travel and transportation from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s that centers the experiences of Black travelers, and a deeply researched history of resistance to discrimination that brings to light those travelers’ active and ongoing efforts to demand equal treatment…Bay urges us to rethink our histories of this era in order to acknowledge a much longer and more extensive pattern of resistance than previously known.

Jotwell - Joanna Grisinger

In Traveling Black, Mia Bay’s superb history of mobility and resistance, the question of literal movement becomes a way to understand the civil rights movement writ large…Bay…is an elegant storyteller, laying out the stark stakes at every turn while also showing how discrimination wasn’t just a matter of crushing predictability but often, and more insidiously, a haphazard jumble of risks…Her excellent book deepens our understanding of not just where we are but how we got here.

New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

One of the supposed hallmarks of a free democratic society is the ability to travel without restriction. That has not been the case for Black Americans. From slavery through Jim Crow and beyond they faced a plethora of rules, formal and informal, that made travel a daunting enterprise. Mia Bay is one of the outstanding historians of her generation, and she asks crucial questions: Why were so many of the early challenges to segregated travel brought by women? Why was travel by train and bus such a problem for the racial hierarchy, particularly in the South, and why did it become such a focal point of resistance? Timely and well written, Traveling Black offers a powerful new vision of the long arc of protest against racial segregation in America.

Annette Gordon-Reed

Important and disturbing…Filled with vivid first-person accounts, Traveling Black is a superb history that captures a shameful aspect of the American story.

New York Journal of Books - Joseph Barbato

Takes readers on a journey through the history of segregated travel to travel issues faced by contemporary African Americans…Bay provides a detailed historical account of the experiences of African American travelers…A [deep] examination of the history of legal changes pertaining to segregation in transportation.

Technology and Culture - Maggie E. C. Jones

A powerful collection of essays exploring what it means to travel globally as a Black woman.

Book Riot - Anne MaiYee Jansen

Bay gives us an insightful history of travel segregation for Black people from the late 19th century to the 1960s… You’ll come away from Bay’s book with the realization that for every Rosa Parks…there were countless and unknown Black men and women in segregated America who lived and traveled with determination, resistance, and dignity.

Fodor's Travel Publications

01/18/2021

Historian Bay (To Tell the Truth Freely) delivers a comprehensive survey of the relationship between travel restrictions, racial segregation, and civil rights in America. According to Bay, travel segregation began in the antebellum North, where free Black passengers were made to ride on the outside of stagecoaches and steamboats. After emancipation, Southern states passed laws requiring separate accommodations for Black and white travelers. Even when Black train passengers paid first-class ticket fares, Bay notes, they were relegated to dirty smoker cars. Automobiles offered more comfort and privacy for long-distance trips, but Black drivers could not depend on reliable access to service stations, food, or lodging. Some early airlines, meanwhile, refused Black passengers altogether. When buses emerged as the most accessible mode of intercity and interstate public transit in the 1930s and ’40s, they also became the focus of civil rights activism. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided the legal framework that would eventually desegregate common carriers and public accommodations, but Bay argues that Black travelers still experience danger and discrimination in the form of higher prices for car insurance, less-reliable public transportation, and racial profiling by law enforcement. Though somewhat dry, this meticulous account proves that “Black mobility an enduring focal point of struggles over equality and difference.” (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2021-01-27
The disturbing and absorbing story of Black America’s enduring battle for freedom of mobility.

From stagecoaches to iron horses to Cadillacs to the unfriendly skies, Black people in the U.S. have never been truly free to traverse the open road. In this unique contribution to the literature of Black American history, Bay, a professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania, successfully resurrects the story of “a sustained fight for mobility that falls largely outside the organizational history of the civil rights movement.” In doing so, the author effectively demonstrates “Black mobility as an enduring focal point of struggles over equality and difference.” Bay shows how Black travelers have faced a mercurial nationwide patchwork of segregationist laws and practices that have deprived them of accommodation and amenities, dignity, and safety and security. In the early 1800s, young Black boys rode on steamship decks, barely fed and exposed to the elements. During the Jim Crow era, Black passengers, forced to ride in flimsy, old, dangerous railroad cars, were routinely crushed and burned in collisions. As cars entered the mainstream, new Black drivers were denied access to fuel, bathrooms, and hotels, forced to navigate an unspoken White right of way. More than a century after the first Model T hit the road, driving while Black is still fraught. In a fascinating, sometimes infuriating narrative spun with engaging facts, stunning firsthand accounts from generations of Black travelers, and potent imagery, Bay elevates the importance of the Black right to mobility in the struggle for civil rights. Not simply a record of oppression, the book also illuminates the determined spirit that underpins the fight for Black equality across the country, exploring the methods that Black people have used to subvert a racist system that persists today.

A book that shocks, shames, and enlightens with critical scholarship on the Black pursuit of genuine liberty.

Kirkus Reviews