In 'Driving While Black,' we learn how car choices, travel guides, Black-only businesses, and informal communications networks helped to keep Black people safe, as they traveled from coast to coast and prodded towards equality. Most recently, Black travel guides have caught on as a topic of popular interest through films and TV shows like the HBO series 'Lovecraft Country' and the Oscar-winning, yet controversial film 'Green Book.' Now we get to parse through its history. Today, systemic racism still haunts Americans while doing just about anything while Black: shopping, eating, sleeping, and working. The film traces the fight for Black mobility from the Black codes, meant to control Black people's freedom of movement after the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s, which depended on the automobile. Its chief goal was to no longer need printing. The book was published by New York mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936-1966. The documentary examines 'The Negro Motorist Green Book,' a small directory of Black-only businesses, restaurants, staying accommodations, and gas stations that were safe for African Americans to use while traveling. The book provides the basis for the two-hour PBS documentary of the same name, directed by Sorin and Emmy-winning filmmaker Ric Burns.

Gretchen Sorin has done extensive fieldwork on the subject, culminating in her book 'Driving While Black,' which was published earlier this year. Shackling someone cruising along the highway is difficult. The automobile for many African Americans was a utility of safety, freedom, and opportunity.

A vision of a better life met with fear entrenched the journey. Black mobility has always come with its limitations in this country.

Driving while black book