Traveling Black, Mia Bay
Traveling Black, Mia Bay
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Traveling Black
A Story of Race and Resistance

Author: Mia Bay

Narrator: Adenrele Ojo

Unabridged: 15 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/24/2021


Synopsis

Why have white supremacists and Black activists been so focused on Black mobility? From Plessy v. Ferguson to #DrivingWhileBlack, African Americans have fought for over a century to move freely around the United States. Curious as to why so many cases contesting the doctrine of "separate but equal" involved trains and buses, Mia Bay went back to the sources with some basic questions: How did travel segregation begin?

From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, Traveling Black explores when, how, and why racial restrictions took shape and brilliantly portrays what it was like to live with them. Bay unearths troves of supporting evidence, rescuing forgotten stories of undaunted passengers who made it back home despite being insulted, stranded, re-routed, or ignored.

Black travelers never stopped challenging these humiliations and insisting on justice in the courts. Traveling Black upends our understanding of Black resistance, documenting a sustained fight that falls outside the traditional boundaries of the civil rights movement. A masterpiece of scholarly and human insight, this book helps explain why the long, unfinished journey to racial equality so often takes place on the road.

About Mia Bay

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sterling on September 03, 2021

Incredibly thorough history of Jim Crow and systematic racism in America in the 20th century through the lens of travel —buses, plains, trains, and automobiles. If you’re casually familiar with Plessy v Ferguson, the Freedom Riders, Montgomery Bus Boycotts and so forth, you know the headlines, but B......more

Goodreads review by Beverly on May 06, 2021

Highly informative. Unfortunately in conflict with my attention span this often reads like a textbook that is trying not to be a textbook and fails. I find reference to case law to be highly boring.......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on March 10, 2024

Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance by Mia Bay is an amazing book. I learned much and I have been reading and teaching about discrimination for years. By looking at all the ways African Americans traveled in the era before the Civil Right Act, and afterward, as the territory is still not......more

Goodreads review by Chrissy's Books on May 24, 2023

This was an absolutely fantastic insightful and riveting read. You will learn a lot about segregation in travel during the Jim Crow era, you will learn about the first black pilots and aviation within the African American race, which is something I knew very little about, and all about world records......more