Riding While Black Memories

I read both Driving While Black by Gretchen Sorin and Overground Railroad: the Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy A. Taylor. Later I saw the 2-hour documentary based on Ms. Sorin's book.

Both had me remembering that our family was one of many that did not have a car in the 1950s and 1960s. Two of our neighbors across across the street on Walnut had cars and they each made the annual trip South to visit family. Both families were also very active in their respective churches which they drove to --  and I'm sure the family cars were used for the necessity of grocery shopping.

My family never made that Southern pilgrimage. My mother's mother, Lucy Washington Brown, never took her children South, probably because she was basically a single mother trying to made ends meet. Growing up I do remember her taking annual trips to Mississippi, Chicago, and Ashtabula Ohio to see her siblings and other family; however, this was long after her four children were adults with lives of their own. Her mode of transportation was either bus or train.

It wasn't until I saw the Freedom Rides Museum / Historic Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station in 2019 that I realized how difficult Granny's travel to Mississippi must have been -- the mental strain to switch from Northern to Southern thinking and actions. To stand in this museum that still had the vestiges of a segregated bus station was overwhelming.

From the personal collection of S.W. Bush

The Colored Entrance (now boarded up) where a passenger would go inside to purchase a ticket and then have to go outside to wait the bus. 

Neither of my parents drove or had a driver's license. My experiences of riding while Black include the jitney rides my mother took from the grocery store. We usually walked to the grocery store.  Jitney drivers (most often men) acted as taxicabs in their private cars and they were unlicensed. The drivers waited outside grocery stores to see if someone needed a ride home and they would charge a small fee.

My favorite car experiences were the occasional Sunday rides with my grandparents, Richard and Anna Davenport. What a treat viewing the world from the back of Popoo's station wagon! Also there were the rides to their summer place, Golden Hor-Shoe Motor Court in Idlewild Michigan. During those long rides from Buffalo, New York the car was packed with food, beverages, blankets, and pillows --  and laughter.

Copyright © 2020 by Sandra Williams Bush, Ancestor Callings: Georgia and Mississippi Roots. All Rights Reserved.