After my talk about race with the bookie in Greenville, I’d taken an eyeball census of the American Queen’s 410 passengers. There were a number of Asian tourists but only four blacks, a family from Canada on board because one was a scholar who’d been invited to give a talk about escaped slaves. He told me it was strange to find his presentation touted in the boat’s daily newssheet as a “fun and entertaining lecture about life in the Underground Railroad.”
