Mia Bay, "Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Mobility has been central to the American identity\u2014think of the automobile, the perceived freedom that comes with it, the open road\u2014but Black Americans have never possessed the same freedom to move around as whites. From the slave patrols policing the movement of Black Americans in the nineteenth century to the indignities and violence that Blacks suffered on road-trips in the twentieth, Black travelers in the United States have faced violence, indignities, and a confusing and contradictory set of racist rules. This history\u2014the history of the Black experience of travel in the United States\u2014is expertly and beautifully told by Mia Bay in her new book\xa0Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance\xa0(Harvard UP, 2021)\nIn addition to examining the white-supremacist restrictions on Black travel,\xa0Bay\u2014the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History at the University of Pennsylvania\u2014foregrounds how Black Americans coped (The Negro Motorist Green Book\xa0is one such example) and even resisted travel segregation. In fact, by putting travel at the center of her analysis, Bay sheds new light on the the civil rights movement. Finally, Bay concludes the book with an epilogue on the continuities into the present, writing that \u201cthere's no need to travel back in time to travel Black.\u201d\nDexter Fergie is a doctoral student in US and global history at Northwestern University. His research examines the history of ideas, infrastructure, and international organizations.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law