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Authors: Kris Nelscott
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brought Malcolm along so that he could help me . I didn’t want to take care of him.
* * *
Despite Malcolm’s worry, the drive across Pennsylvania was relatively uneventful. True to my promise, I didn’t go south to Pittsburgh. Instead, we drove on Interstate 80 across the middle of Pennsylvania. I got a bit turned around after we left the Ohio Turnpike. The interstate wasn’t finished through Youngstown, and the maze of roads and the lack of signs were very confusing.
But once we hit Pennsylvania, I was all right, taking the driving one hour at a time. There was a lot of traffic, most of it elderly people on Sunday drives or families enjoying a day off. There were also a lot of small towns just off the interstate, which made me leery.
Up north, the small towns were generally white, generally suspicious of anyone who didn’t belong — and it was pretty obvious, right from the first glance that I didn’t belong — and unwilling to accommodate newcomers, particularly black newcomers.
I had known from the start that this part of my trip would be difficult. I made sure our gas tank was full before we started into Pennsylvania, and as I drove, I kept an eye not just on the landscape, but also on the other drivers around me.
In some ways, the panel van gave us protection. We rode higher than most cars, and because of that, our skin color wasn’t immediately obvious. Judging by the reactions I got at gas stations and at one of the restaurants in Cleveland, no one expected three black males to get out of a van. I guess the stereotype had us in finned Cadillacs or the kind of dilapidated car my Impala had been.
We stopped twice at waysides. On both occasions, I picked stops that had few cars, instead of the ones that were packed. Jimmy, who had a small bladder, complained once when I passed a stop, but when I mentioned that there were three trucks in the parking area, he said he could hold it.
Malcolm looked at both of us as if we were speaking a strange language, and maybe we were. But Jimmy and I had had a couple of bad experiences with truck drivers after we had fled Memphis, and neither of us wanted to repeat that.
We had dinner in Scranton at a roadside diner that I saw a black couple enter just as we were driving past. The meal was adequate, and the prices reasonable.
The last part of the trip, from Scranton into New York and then on to Connecticut, proved more difficult than I expected. My Sinclair map, which I had gotten because Jimmy loved the dinosaur on the cover, showed Interstate 84 as completed. But my map was optimistic. The road was supposed to be completed by 1969, and in the way of all good road construction, it was behind schedule.
We sat through single lanes and long traffic lines, driving past construction workers who looked uncomfortable in their work uniforms, sweat pouring down their faces.
I felt at a distinct disadvantage not knowing the area. When Jimmy and I had driven north from Memphis, I had deliberately followed the Old Gospel Trail, knowing I would find friendly motels and a lot of black faces. It had been the black migration route when the jobs left the south and moved north.
But I knew so little about Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that I had mostly guessed. T he back section of Chicago Negro Almanac listed black population centers in the country by state. There seemed to be a pattern: Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, which had been my original route.
But when I changed my mind, and decided to push directly to New Haven, I forced us into uncharted territory. And my little Sinclair map, which was about as trustworthy as a page of imaginary lines, said the largest town between Scranton and New Haven was either Middletown, Newburgh, or Danbury , which were nothing but names to me.
The road construction continued most of the way through New York. The workers had left by the time we reached Maybrook. The new interstate, with its half-opened lanes, became a ghost
* * *
Despite Malcolm’s worry, the drive across Pennsylvania was relatively uneventful. True to my promise, I didn’t go south to Pittsburgh. Instead, we drove on Interstate 80 across the middle of Pennsylvania. I got a bit turned around after we left the Ohio Turnpike. The interstate wasn’t finished through Youngstown, and the maze of roads and the lack of signs were very confusing.
But once we hit Pennsylvania, I was all right, taking the driving one hour at a time. There was a lot of traffic, most of it elderly people on Sunday drives or families enjoying a day off. There were also a lot of small towns just off the interstate, which made me leery.
Up north, the small towns were generally white, generally suspicious of anyone who didn’t belong — and it was pretty obvious, right from the first glance that I didn’t belong — and unwilling to accommodate newcomers, particularly black newcomers.
I had known from the start that this part of my trip would be difficult. I made sure our gas tank was full before we started into Pennsylvania, and as I drove, I kept an eye not just on the landscape, but also on the other drivers around me.
In some ways, the panel van gave us protection. We rode higher than most cars, and because of that, our skin color wasn’t immediately obvious. Judging by the reactions I got at gas stations and at one of the restaurants in Cleveland, no one expected three black males to get out of a van. I guess the stereotype had us in finned Cadillacs or the kind of dilapidated car my Impala had been.
We stopped twice at waysides. On both occasions, I picked stops that had few cars, instead of the ones that were packed. Jimmy, who had a small bladder, complained once when I passed a stop, but when I mentioned that there were three trucks in the parking area, he said he could hold it.
Malcolm looked at both of us as if we were speaking a strange language, and maybe we were. But Jimmy and I had had a couple of bad experiences with truck drivers after we had fled Memphis, and neither of us wanted to repeat that.
We had dinner in Scranton at a roadside diner that I saw a black couple enter just as we were driving past. The meal was adequate, and the prices reasonable.
The last part of the trip, from Scranton into New York and then on to Connecticut, proved more difficult than I expected. My Sinclair map, which I had gotten because Jimmy loved the dinosaur on the cover, showed Interstate 84 as completed. But my map was optimistic. The road was supposed to be completed by 1969, and in the way of all good road construction, it was behind schedule.
We sat through single lanes and long traffic lines, driving past construction workers who looked uncomfortable in their work uniforms, sweat pouring down their faces.
I felt at a distinct disadvantage not knowing the area. When Jimmy and I had driven north from Memphis, I had deliberately followed the Old Gospel Trail, knowing I would find friendly motels and a lot of black faces. It had been the black migration route when the jobs left the south and moved north.
But I knew so little about Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that I had mostly guessed. T he back section of Chicago Negro Almanac listed black population centers in the country by state. There seemed to be a pattern: Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, which had been my original route.
But when I changed my mind, and decided to push directly to New Haven, I forced us into uncharted territory. And my little Sinclair map, which was about as trustworthy as a page of imaginary lines, said the largest town between Scranton and New Haven was either Middletown, Newburgh, or Danbury , which were nothing but names to me.
The road construction continued most of the way through New York. The workers had left by the time we reached Maybrook. The new interstate, with its half-opened lanes, became a ghost
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