Episode 2: Traveling While Black
Southern Black Americans traveling to the North for higher education would face a new world of opportunity and experience. They came from farms, remote rural towns, and urban centers like Atlanta. For many, it was their first chance to travel outside the segregated South.
In Southern train depots, African American passengers waited in Black-only waiting rooms – crowded, unsanitary and poorly lit. They boarded segregated Jim Crow railroad cars with cramped seating, no luggage racks, insufficient heating and poor sanitation. Blacks were required to take their meals after the white passengers were finished or, in many cases, were simply denied access to the dining car. Upon crossing into the North, African Americans were able to move to integrated cars with greatly improved facilities. On the return trip, passing through Southern cities like Cairo, IL, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C., train conductors would force Black passengers back into Jim Crow cars.
Black Americans driving from the South (by car or bus) would refer to The Green Book. This guide offered detailed information about hotels, boarding houses, taverns, restaurants, service stations and other establishments that would serve African Americans. Many Black motorists stayed with relatives along the route and relied on family and friends in the North to help them find accommodations upon arrival.
Studying in the North brought a mix of opportunities and challenges. The North had its own forms of prejudice and complex social customs to navigate. Despite the obstacles and prejudice Black students from the South found in the North, many remembered the relative freedom they found there.
African Americans from the South responded to segregationist policies meant to subjugate by returning home with formidable skills and knowledge from Ivy League universities and other elite institutions. The global perspectives and networks they built outside the Jim Crow South would have a revolutionary impact on their families and communities, helping to expand horizons and inspire hope for change.
The five-part series “Segregation Scholarships” is a production of B Squared Communications in association with The WNET Group’s Chasing the Dream initiative.
Major funding for Chasing the Dream is provided by The JPB Foundation with additional funding from Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.
