The Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club — from left, Katherine Neal, Georgia Lewis, Lisa Renee Johnson, Allisa Carr and Sandra Jamerson. The fun-lovers got the heave-ho — even the woman in her 80s. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group via AP)
The incident of a mostly black book club of women being kicked off of a train touring wineries, which resulted in the viral hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack, has been settled out of court.
Members of the 11-woman book club – 10 of them black, and one white – were escorted off of a train touring Napa Valley wineries in August 2015 for laughing too loudly. The video went viral, with the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack inspiring Twitter and Facebook users to share stories of racial bias encountered while traveling.
The group sued the company for $11 million in damages, claiming that two of the women lost their jobs as a result of the fallout. But New York Times reports that Lisa Johnson, a member of the Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club, said “the matter was resolved on terms acceptable to all parties last week.”
The Napa Valley Wine Train initially claimed that the women being kicked off wasn’t an instance of racism, but of “acute sensitivity.” They also accused the women of “verbal and physical abuse” in a Facebook post, before taking back those allegations.
Johnson said the book club has seen a spike in requests to join, but that the group has also received racist comments on social media. They plan to continue their annual trip to Napa Valley, but that they won’t patron the wine train anymore.
“We all have biases,” Johnson said, but everyone should “find the courage to behave differently.”
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