Picture this image.
It's the early 1950s, and a light blue Chevrolet
follows the edges of the highway closely as it winds around a bend.
The car is large and durable, its lines are sleek and
elegant, and it is made in America.
The driving is smooth and effortless.
Singer Dinah Shore sang of the joys of the open road,
as she urged Americans to see the USA in your Chevrolet.
Let's take a listen.
>> See the USA in your Chevrolet,
America is asking you to call.
Drive your Chevrolet through the USA, America's the greatest land of all.
On a highway, or a road along the levee.
Performance is sweeter.
Nothing can beat her.
Life is completer in a Chevy.
So make a date today to see the USA, and see it in your Chevrolet.
>> Traveling east, traveling west, wherever you go,
Chevy service is best, southward or north, near place or
far, there's a Chevrolet dealer for your Chevrolet car.
>> So these American pleasures, taking to the road, exploring the country,
enjoying the autonomy of driving one's own car were
almost entirely unavailable to African-American motorists.
The experiences of African-Americans challenged the notion
that the road was open and democratic,
a place of adventure and individualism and fun.
African-Americans were largely excluded
from the car culture that flowered in the mid-20th century,
even those black travelers with the financial resources to
own a car had enormous difficulty finding lodging,
restaurants, and gas stations that would serve them.
Travel for blacks was fraught with such humiliation and
unpleasantness that many black travelers never
thought of a vacation in the same way as the rest of America.
Even the national parks with their universal appeal were often segregated,
if not entirely restricted to white travelers through the 1950s.
Now of course, there was no objection raised when
African-American drivers worked as chauffeurs.
And in fact, many black drivers, knowing this, would often wear a chauffeur's hat,
or keep one visible in the front seat of their car to make their travel safer.
But once blacks were passengers, or drivers, and
especially an expensive or luxurious cars,
they were often subject to harassment and greater scrutiny.
Now, for example, purchasing gasoline was a very brief and impersonal transaction.
Often, white service station owners had no problem taking cash from black motorists.
But these same white service station owners might not allow black drivers
to use their bathrooms, which could cause enormous simulations and embarrassment.
In Mississippi, black motorists were not allowed
to pass white cars on country roads, for
fear that they might kick up dirt onto white owned cars.
So the open road then did not provide the respite
from the Jim Crow regime that black motorists hoped.
Instead, travel demonstrated Jim Crow's elasticity,
and its ability to reach and to constrain black motorists wherever they might be.
Now, while the car represented numerous opportunities for
humiliation, we must also take into account the fact that the car
did present a new kind of freedom for black travelers.
For one thing, purchasing an automobile did allow black travelers to avoid
traveling in the squalor of second class railroad cars.
Black women also learned to drive, which sparked a revolution in gender relations.
Often, black women learned to drive, so
that they could help their husbands on long distance travels,
so that they would not have to stop other African-Americans who had
migrated from northern cities during the Great Migration
would often drive their cars back to the southern towns,
where they were from to show off in front of their relatives, and
to prove that life up north was nothing less than perfect.
Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers described the importance of his
car to his job as an NAACP field secretary.
Evers drove across Mississippi on back roads and
on isolated areas to gather evidence, and to investigate arson and murder.
He chose a large and imposing Oldsmobile with a V8 engine for his travels.
The car was powerful, and its engine was a practical choice.
The car had to be able to outrun an ambush, or
to be able to be able to avoid being run off the road.
It also had to be large enough for Evers to stretch out his long legs,
and to sleep for the night.
The Negro Motorist Green Book, also known as the Green Guide, promised safer travel.
It was a travel guide that directed African-Americans to safe and
welcoming hotels, restaurants, and gas stations.
A 20th century version of the network created by the underground railroad,
the Green Book offered a guide to equalize travel.
It created a geography, that was hidden and invisible to whites,
yet apparent and instrumental to blacks.
Now, when I first started researching this project,
I wanted to get a sense of travel for myself.
And I wanted to also get a sense of what spaces and
locations were still around from the Green Guide.
So I followed the Green Book, and I traveled from New Orleans to Chicago.
I was fortunate, I was not pulled over by the police, I was welcomed
at restaurants and hotels, and I was not humiliated at gas stations.
But still, as I drove alone I was haunted by the history of the region.
As I drove through Mississippi,
I could not escape the memory of Emmett Till's gruesome murder,
or Fannie Lou Hamer's forced sterilization in Sunflower County,
or her near death beating in a jail in Winona.
The inescapable Confederate flag flew high above every
municipal building in the state of Mississippi.
I stopped at the Lorraine Motel while I was in Memphis, and
peered up at the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Most of the places in the Green Guide no longer exist.
Driving this route feels eerie and strange at times.
I mourn the decline of once thriving towns and buzzing black business districts.
I felt as though I was chasing a glorious past that was gone.
And along the way, I found some of my families own ghosts.
I found the funeral parlor that my great aunts owned in New Orleans
that had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
This August, for the first time in the organization's history,
the NAACP issued a travel advisory for a single state, for Missouri.
The advisory was based on incidents of racial discrimination and
abuse that had grown rampant throughout the state.
But the travel advisory raised questions about the safety
of black motorists throughout the country.
Many wondered why is this travel advisory being issued just for
Missouri, and why just now.
Concerns about the lack of protection for
black drivers has been brewing for a long time, and
has led many to wonder, are we safe on the roads?
From the earliest days of the automobile, racist laws, social customs,
and government regulations have limited the mobility of black drivers.
Driving wasn't just about the fear of a flat tire, or
the failure of an automobile, but rather about encountering
unexpected humiliations, and sometimes racial terror.
Black drivers continue to face harassment, and even death on the roads,
as we have seen with the tragic cases of Sandra Bland,
Laquan McDonald, Samuel DuBose, and countless others.
Terror on the road has a long history, and sadly, this history is still with us.
When African-Americans take to the road,
they continue to find themselves far from sanctuary.
Thank you.