The advent of affordable cars opened up the opportunity for blacks to answer the call of the road, and make memories with their families, but the constant fear never left. It's the constant concern for safety - while eating, sleeping, and living. We are told that the phrase, 'Driving while black' covers much more than the time behind the wheel. That anxiety and horror felt by blacks on the road in a racist society still exists today, and the history is expertly examined in this PBS documentary from author Gretchen Sorin and Ric Burns (brother of Ken). As a white family, we always had options for places to stop, while the black families were always concerned for their safety, and certainly never had the number of options we did.

However, the few differences were substantial, to say the least. Why do I tell you this? Well because this is pretty much exactly how black people in this movie describe their long ago vacations. eating in a restaurant or café was a luxury that might happen once or twice on a trip. We always had an ice chest, which allowed us to prepare most meals while on the trip. Airline travel was not in the budget, and, at night, we typically piled everyone into one room at a low cost roadside motor inn (motel).

When I was a kid, our family vacations consisted of loading up the car (with stuff and people) and hitting the road.

Driving while black book