Driving While Black: Race, Space, and Mobility in America

Driving While Black chronicles how the advent of the automobile brought new mobility and freedom for African Americans but also exposed them to discrimination and deadly violence, and how that history resonates today. The film explores the deep background of a recent phrase rooted in realities that have been an indelible part of the African American experience for hundreds of years—told in large part through the stories of the men, women, and children who lived through it. Driving While Black draws on a wealth of recent scholarship to examine the history of African Americans on the road from the depths of the Depression to the height of the Civil Rights movement and beyond, exploring along the way the deeply embedded dynamics of race, space, and mobility during one of the most turbulent and transformative periods in American history.  

Driving While Black is based on and inspired in large part by Gretchen Sorin’s 2020 book on the way automobiles and highways transformed African American life cross the 20th century, Driving While Black: African American Travels and the Road to Civil Rights. Listen to Sorin discuss the film on NPR and learn more about how the film “ties mobility restrictions of the past directly to the present” from CNN. CNN also offers an in-depth discussion of the film, with quotations from Sorin and other historians in the field.