It's hardly a secret that mobility has always been limited, if not impossible, for African Americans. Before the Civil War, masters confined their slaves to their property, while free Black people found themselves regularly stopped, questioned, and even kidnapped. Restrictions on movement before emancipation carried over, in different forms, into Reconstruction and beyond; for most of the twentieth century, many white Americans felt blithely comfortable...

Chronicling the history and personal experiences of African Americans on the road from the advent of the automobile through the seismic changes of the 1960s and beyond - Driving While Black explores the background of a phrase rooted in realities that have been a part of the African American experience for hundreds of years - told in part through the stories of the people who lived through it.