SPEAKING
Candacy Taylor is an award-winning author, photographer, and cultural documentarian who’s been a popular keynote speaker for nearly 20 years. She has traveled over 500,000 miles throughout the United States, and in her writing and photography she’s documented American subcultures—from ethnic hairdressers (American Roots) to diner waitresses (Counter Culture) to female bullfighters (By the Horns). Taylor’s most recent project is her bestselling book, Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America (the paperback edition will be released in 2026, young adult version published 2021). Taylor was also the curator of The Negro Motorist Green Book exhibition which toured 13 museums by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Taylor also develops multimedia presentations that inspire solution-oriented conversations about women, aging, labor and making a living as an artist.
Field research has proved to be a risky venture. On the road, Taylor has been threatened, chased by dogs, and narrowly avoided physical assault. To stay safe, she traveled with a knife under the car seat, a stun gun in the door pocket, and Mace behind the gear shaft. But photographing the country has revealed important insights about America that she never would have discovered from her desk at Harvard. She experienced the resonance of bygone eras, and witnessed a new cycle of grit, survival, and hope along America’s backroads and byways. Her talks share the depth and breadth of those moments on the road.
SPEAKING THEMES
AGING • AMERICA • ARCHITECTURE • ART • RACE • WOMEN • WORK
OVERGROUND RAILROAD
This talk tells the untold story of black travel, offering a rich opportunity to reexamine America’s story of segregation, Black migration, and the rise of the Black leisure class. It features the story of the Green Book over its three decades of publication highlighting Black-owned businesses. This talk also shows archival images of Green Book sites and modern ones that document the indelible scars that redlining, urban renewal, gentrification, and mass incarceration have left on these communities. The paperback version of Overground Railroad will be published in 2026.
A young adult version of Overground Railroad was published in 2022 for ages 12 and up. This would be a great opportunity for venues to host book clubs and encourage children and parents (and grandparents) to read together. Once they’ve read the book, Taylor would facilitate a discussion about the generational differences in experiencing and processing our racial history.
COUNTER CULTURE: AMERICA’S DINER WAITRESSES
Candacy Taylor is the author of Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress. The book features a resilient group of career waitresses aged 50 to 84 years old. These hardworking women have raced to our tables and have brought meaning and culture to the American roadside dining experience. Taylor interviewed and photographed diner waitresses in forty-three US cities who have worked in the same diner for up to 60 years. Many have retired and gone back to the job because they missed it so much.
MODELS OF HEALTHY AGING These waitresses have worked in the same diners for more than 50 years. Most people would find waitressing physically exhausting, but these women believe the job keeps them in shape, sharpens their minds, and fulfills their desire to make meaningful human connections.
BY THE HORNS: FEMALE BULLFIGHTERS
After being tossed in the air by a 700-pound bull, trampled, tossed again, and then gored in the stomach, bullfighter Cristina Sánchez said, “I can’t wait to get back in the ring. To be in front of a bull is a feeling so great that it can’t be described. Outside the ring, I am a normal, shy girl. But in the ring, I am transformed. I'm not a girl anymore, I am a bullfighter."
This talk captures the struggle and the triumphs of this fascinating subculture of women. Women have performed with bulls since 2000 B.C. and this talk explores that history while examining gender and power. It does not take a position on the politics of bullfighting. It focuses on bloodless bullfights along border towns in America and throughout California and shows the cultural and symbolic implications of women gaining access and anchoring an undeniable presence in this male-dominated industry.
AMERICAN ROOTS
Hair salons are one of the most racially segregated businesses in America. This is largely due to the differences in our hair texture and the skills that are required to style those different textures. Other factors include language and the priority to provide an intimate space where people are free to reveal things about themselves and their culture, that are otherwise, not freely shared.
Taylor traveled over 26,000 miles throughout the US conducting interviews in salons that serve African American, Appalachian, Cajun, Dominican, Gullah-Geechee, Jamaican, Japanese, Jewish (Orthodox), Pakistani, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Hair may appear to be a vain subject, but a deeper examination offers a rich, complex topic to discover American culture and ourselves. This talk untangles the story of Americans and their hair and pulls back the curtain on salon culture by featuring an institution that is rooted in rituals as diverse as America. It looks at the science and beauty standards that shape identity in a celebrity-obsessed culture. New dialogues are emerging, and this talk captures that conversation.
This talk is based on Taylor's American Roots interview project which received an award from the American Folklife Center and is now archived at the Library of Congress.
WOMEN & WORK
During a time when women couldn’t receive credit or even open a bank account, thousands of Black women owned Green Book sites. There were over 900 beauty salons and nearly 1400 tourist homes run mostly by widowed women who rented out extra bedrooms and cooked warm meals for travelers. These were possibly the first Airbnb’s.
This talk celebrates the most inspiring female Green Book proprietors, including Leah Chase of Dooky Chase’s restaurant in New Orleans and Alma Green, Victor Green’s wife, who edited and eventually published the Green Book, while managing its nearly all-female staff.
MAKING A LIVING AS A CREATIVE
Candacy Taylor, an author, photographer, and cultural documentarian, has produced transmedia projects for nearly 25 years including books, touring exhibitions, and interactive maps. Her projects enrich, challenge, and inspire new ways to think about culture and identity.
Although Taylor's work has been celebrated by dozens of media outlets, funded by numerous organizations, and archived at the Library of Congress, she would have never been able to make a comfortable living if she hadn't employed the key strategies that she will discuss in this talk.
This talk is designed to speak to a wide audience of creatives, scholars, artists, filmmakers, photographers, and writers about how to build a prosperous and creative life. Taylor is a hustler. She has the heart of an artist, the mind of a businesswoman, and the tenacity of a terrier. She will share the things she wished she had known earlier in her career. This talk will highlight Taylor’s real-life experiences of adapting her book into a play and television series. She will discuss negotiating strategies she used to sign contracts with ABC, The Smithsonian, Harvard University, the Library of Congress, and National Geographic. She will talk about the agreements she couldn't sign due to the coded, obtuse language used in contracts to take away an artist’s right to distribute, control, and protect their content. She will speak about the critical role marketing and branding play in reaching a wider audience and recount the tools and best practices used to make a comfortable living doing what you love.
BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIP
There were over 10,000 businesses listed in the Green Book and most of them were Black-owned. This talk features Black-owned businesses and financial institutions, emphasizing the importance of Black entrepreneurship, and highlights the vibrant Black neighborhoods these Green Book businesses thrived in before integration.
HISTORIC AND ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATION
Taylor has cataloged and mapped nearly 11,000 Green Book listings, traveled to nearly 7,000 Green Book sites in 48 US States, and photographed over 200 of them. Her field research revealed that approximately 80% of the buildings were gone. This talk features the remaining Green Book sites that are vulnerable to extinction and those that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the National Trust. For instance, the Ben Moore Hotel in Montgomery Alabama has been sitting in ruins for four decades and it was the site where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his inner circle held secret meetings to strategize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The talk will also focus on what has been done to restore honor to these sites, while also examining how racism has played a critical role in determining what buildings are valued, preserved, and saved. Finally, this talk will feature the success stories of Green Book sites that have been saved by undergoing extensive, multi-million-dollar rehabilitation initiatives.
AMERICA’S SUNDOWN TOWNS
This talk examines the historical and current challenges of traveling while Black in a county with over a thousand sundown towns. Sundown towns were all-white communities that banned Black people from entering after dark.
This talk will reveal common misconceptions about sundown towns. Most people assume they were primarily in the South, but the West and Midwest are the areas with the most. For instance, Indiana, Ohio, and California had the highest number of sundown towns while South Carolina and Louisiana and Mississippi, had the fewest; and in 1859 the entire state of Oregon was a sundown town.
Taylor has mapped 1032 sundown towns and has collected over 800 pages of census data, stories, and testimonies from people who have lived in these places. Taylor started mapping sundown towns to understand the role they play in maintaining racial division today and determining how they inform our current policies, especially regarding housing and educational segregation, and now mass incarceration. This talk will provide a customized analysis of the hosting organization’s state to encourage a robust QnA discussion with the audience.
TRAVELING WHILE BLACK & INTERNATIONAL GREEN BOOK SITES
This talk highlights diversity travel, while examining the historical and current challenges of traveling while Black. Taylor’s documentation of sundown towns and the perils of driving while Black are included, but it also celebrates the positive aspects of travel. International Green Book sites in Mexico, throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa will also be featured.
THE ROOTS OF ROUTE 66
Route 66 was one of the first cross-country road trips branded and marketed to white suburban families, and although the Mother Road is the poster child for nostalgia, Route 66 mirrored a shameful chapter in American history. Nearly half of all the counties that lined Route 66 were Sundown Towns, which were towns that were all white communities that banned blacks from entering city limits after sundown.
This talk examines the gulf between our nostalgic reimagining of the postwar “happy days” and the fabled highway’s idealized past that never was. It takes the audience through a state-by-state journey a Black family would have experienced traveling Route 66 during the Jim Crow era—highlighting the dangers and celebrating Green Book sites along the way, such as Murray’s, a Black Dude Ranch in the middle of the Mojave Desert in southern California.
When Taylor was commissioned to write a Moon travel guide for Route 66, she learned that half of the 89 counties along this renowned American highway were sundown towns. This talk examines the gulf between our nostalgic reimagining of the postwar “happy days” and the fabled highway’s idealized past that never was.
Academics & Teachers
Bestselling Authors
Book Club and Library Favorites
Major Award Winners
Campus Reads
Artist & Photography
Travel Narratives
Young Adult
American South (Black travel)
American West (Black travel)
Female Author
Diversity and Inclusion
Racial Issues
VIDEO APPEARANCES
VIDEO LINKS
CBS SUNDAY MORNING
https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/ffZTlfir5YqxUhXKMCVOFuxbfhAzHi08/
BY THE HORNS: Female Bullfighters– Video Produced by Candacy Taylor
https://sophiepegrum.com/bythehorns
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - Mapping the Green Book video (Grades 6-12)
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/mapping-green-book/
ROOTS OF ROUTE 66 -Clifton's Cafeteria Video by Katrina Parks
FORA – THE ROOTS OF ROUTE 66
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ajjcd
VICE - ABANDONED - ROUTE 66 (I'm at the 35-minute mark)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tedJdhb6QJI
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS (SELECTED)
ExxonMobil Headquarters - August 29, 2023 (not open to the public)
The Schomburg Center with Kevin Young
HEINZ HISTORY CENTER: Pittsburgh, PA Overground Railroad
TULSA, OK-ROUTE 66 ROADFEST: SageNet Center at Expo Square,
THE AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER CONFERENCE – Santa Fe, NM. American Roots
AMERICA’S BLACK HOLOCAUST MUSEUM - Milwaukee, WI. Overground Railroad
AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES - Baltimore, MD. Overground Railroad
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY ON AGING CONFERENCE -Philadelphia, PA. & Anaheim, CA. Career Waitresses: Models of Healthy Aging
THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE–San Francisco, CA. Counter
Culture
THE AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE–Oakland, CA. Counter
Culture
ASSOCIATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUMS - Jackson, MI. Overground Railroad
Automotive Hall of Fame
THE AUTRY MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN WEST - Los Angeles, CA. Route 66, Women & The Green Book
THE AUTOMOTIVE HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY & KEYNOTE Detroit, MI. Overground Railroad
THE BAY AREA BOOK FESTIVAL-Berkeley, CA. The Roots of Route 66
BROWN UNIVERSITY–Providence, RI. Documenting Subcultures
THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS–San Francisco, CA. Counter Culture
THE CALIFORNIA MUSEUM - Sacramento, CA. Overground Railroad
EITELJORG MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN - Indianapolis, IN. Black Travel in the West,
EXXONMOBIL HEADQUARTERS - Houston, TX. Overground Railroad
HARVARD UNIVERSITY - In conversation with Deborah Willis Cambridge, MA. Photographing Overground Railroad
HISTORY COLORADO - Denver, CO. Overground Railroad
THE INSTITUTE ON AGING - San Francisco, CA. Overground Railroad
JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL - San Francisco Bay Area, CA. Overground Railroad
THE JIMMY CARTER MUSEUM - Atlanta, GA. Overground Railroad
THE KNIGHT FOUNDATION & THE MIAMI BOOK FAIR - Miami, FL. Overground Railroad
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS BOTKIN LECTURE - Washington, DC. American Roots
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - Washington, DC. Women Documenting the World
MOSAIC TEMPLARS MUSEUM - Little Rock, AR. Overground Railroad
THE NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM - Atlanta, GA. Overground Railroad
THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR HISTORY EDUCATION - Washington, DC. Overground Railroad
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - Washington, DC. Mapping Black Mobility in America
NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION - Washington, DC. Overground Railroad
THE NATIONAL TRUST - PastForward Conference Washington DC. Overground Railroad
THE NATIONAL WOMEN’S STUDIES ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE–Atlanta, GA. Counter Culture
NEON SPEAKS - San Francisco, CA. Neon Signage in Overground Railroad
THE NEW SCHOOL - New York, NY. Taylor Made Culture
NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL INSURANCE HEADQUARTERS- Milwaukee, WI. Route 66 and the Green Book
THE PETERSEN AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM - Los Angeles, CA. Route 66 and the Green Book
THE RAMAZ SCHOOL - New York, NY. Overground Railroad (YA)
ROUTE 66 ROAD FEST - Tulsa, OK. & Oklahoma City, OK. Overground Railroad
SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE - Bronxville, NY. Taylor Made Culture
THE SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR BLACK RESEARCH, in conversation with Kevin Young - New York, NY. Overground Railroad Book Launch
SPELMAN COLLEGE - Atlanta, GA. Women & the Green Book.
THE SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE - Oxford, MI. Counter Culture.
The Southern Foodways Alliance
Congressman Jim Clyburn - Capitol Building presentation
THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL - Washington, DC. Overground Railroad presentation at the United States Capitol before members of Congress.
WOMEN’S LITERARY FESTIVAL –Santa Barbara, CA. Counter Culture