Terminus

The conclusion studies the train travel experiences of the person who coined the term “Jane Crow,” Pauli Murray. Murray’s narrative, “Three Thousand Miles on a Dime in Ten Days,” and Murray’s private papers are among the few places where pleasurable Black “female” train riding occurs. Murray presented as male when train riding. The section compares Murray’s recording of public accounts of train travel to Murray’s more candid accounts preserved in a photograph album and a scrapbook. These items are Murray’s mobile archives that reflect a queered, Jane Crow(ed) identity. Significantly, Murray rode on freight cars, train compartments that escape the rigid class demarcations of first- or second-class cars. That the individual most responsible for coining the term “Jane Crow” also embodies the engagement of travel, identity, and the archive offers one of the most fitting conclusions to a counter-archive of Black women’s travel narratives.