"Driving While Black" with Gretchen Sorin
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Historian Gretchen Sorin has written a fascinating new book, "Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights," that dives into the role the car played in the 20th-century African American experience. Sorin talked with Sarah about how in the Jim Crow era, when riding public transportation was often humiliating and downright dangerous for black Americans, the automobile provided a way for black families to get around with safety and dignity. She also explains how cars played an instrumental role in building the civil rights movement, and why white etiquette expert Emily Post wasn't so comfortable with the rising popularity of the automobile.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Some people call this the first rock and roll song and like a lot of rock and roll songs |
| 0:08.3 | it's a love song to a car the brand new Oldsmobile Rocket 88. |
| 0:15.0 | You women have heard of Jalop, you heard the noise they make, |
| 0:18.0 | but let me reintroduce my new Rocket 88. |
| 0:22.0 | Yeah, sit straight straight just one way. |
| 0:25.0 | Everybody likes my Rocket 88. |
| 0:28.0 | Baby, we'll ride in style, |
| 0:30.0 | moving all along. |
| 0:32.0 | That tune was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1951 by Jackie Branson and the Delta Cats. |
| 0:39.0 | A very young Ike Turner is on the piano. |
| 0:42.0 | The band was also known as Ike Turner and his rhythm kings. |
| 0:46.7 | Rocket 88 was just one of many songs from the 40s and 50s that celebrated the new found freedom |
| 0:51.7 | and mobility African Americans experienced thanks to the automobile. |
| 0:56.5 | My guest today is historian Gretchen Sorin, whose new book, |
| 1:00.4 | Driving While Black, dives into the cultural history of the car in the 20th century |
| 1:05.2 | African American experience. |
| 1:07.6 | I'm Sarah Goodyear, and this is the War on cars. I recently talked with Gretchen Soren about her book and the history of how black people in America used cars to create safety and dignity for their families in the Jim Crow era and to build a civil rights movement. |
| 1:31.0 | It was a fascinating conversation and we'll get to it in just a moment. |
| 1:36.2 | But first I'd like to give a shout out to our Patreon supporters around the globe who have been continuing |
| 1:41.2 | to support us during the COVID crisis. |
| 1:43.0 | It honestly means more than you can know. |
| 1:46.0 | If you're not a Patreon supporter yet, |
... |
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