revolts. With the end of slavery, these legal patrols
continued as illegal vigilante groups often sanctioned
by the police.
Perhaps the most egregious example was Bull
Connor, who gained national attention in the 1960s
as a vocal segregationist. He became the nation’s best-
known “law enforcement” officer in 1961, when he
ordered men with fire hoses and police dogs to attack
lawful civil rights demonstrators. He also enabled the
Ku Klux Klan to commit murder with impunity in
Birmingham, Alabama. Nor was this just a Southern
phenomenon. Black Americans and the police clashed
during the social upheavals of the 1960s in northern
cities and on the West Coast: New York, Newark,
Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore.
Current restrictions on African American mobility
contribute to ongoing deep divisions between Black
people and white people about their views of law
enforcement. In a 2019 Pew study, 87 percent of Black
Americans believed that Black people are treated less
fairly by the justice system, but only 61 percent of white
Americans agreed.
Similarly, a 2016 study revealed a huge disparity
between Black and white Americans in their
beliefs about the treatment of Black citizens by law
enforcement officers, with Black Americans far more
Although Black
drivers viewed
their car as a
safe environment,
sometimes angry
mobs would
confront them in
small towns. In this
1956 photograph,
a Black motorist
passes through
Clinton, Tennessee.mistrustful of police officers and far more convinced
that police officers are inclined to use excessive force,
and rarely are held accountable, when dealing with
people of color.
The shooting of Philando Castile in his car in Falcon
Heights, Minnesota, on July 6, 2016; 15-year-old
Jordan Edwards, a passenger in a car leaving a party
in Dallas on April 29, 2017; and the killing of George
Floyd, pulled from his car after being accused of
passing a counterfeit bill at a convenience store on
May 25, 2020, are frightening reminders that Black
lives remain captives to history.
If nothing else, perhaps the recent demonstrations
that have rocked the country in the last months will
force this dialogue. QThe Author
Dr. Gretchen Sorin is a distinguished professor and
director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program
in Museum Studies at SUNY Oneonta. She is the
author of Driving While Black: African American
Travel and the Road to Civil Rights, available at
Bookshop.org. A documentary of the same name
is scheduled to debut on PBS this October.SEPTEMBER 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 69