Still recovering from a devastating breakup with the man she loved, a young African American woman decides to drive from New York City to Mexico with three female friends. In 1954, during the height of Jim Crow, the decision is both brave and potentially dangerous.

While in the States, they hear opinions of Black activists and naysayers about the effectiveness of Brown vs the Board of Education, The Supreme Court ruling of 1954 declaring that separate schools for Blacks were not equal. They suffer racism themselves to and from Mexico, affirming their conclusion that the age of equality had not arrived. For many whites, the decision fanned the ugly fires of bigotry into outright hostility, while many in the Black communities seemed strangely ambivalent about the situation.

As the road rolls away beneath her, Marietta Jones Tanner's protagonist must come to terms with the events that lost her the man she loves-factors that include a tormented decision she made alone, still under the influence of her domineering father and a Christ-driven mother. Her regrets will come to a head in Mexico City.

A fictional account based on Tanner's memories of the early days of the civil rights movement, Driving in Second is both a sobering examination of US race relations and a reminder that equality is not negotiable.