Two Centuries of Strength: Black Women Who Built and Move America’s Freight
- REAL Women in Trucking
- Mar 5
- 10 min read
The earliest known Black woman involved in freight hauling / driving work is generally considered to be Mary "Stagecoach Mary" Fields (1832–1914).
Mary was a freight hauler and U.S. Postal Service star-route mail carrier in Montana from 1895–1903. She became the first African American woman employed as a U.S. star-route mail carrier, delivering mail by wagon across rugged Montana routes.
She won the mail delivery contract at age 60 and drove a horse-drawn freight wagon carrying mail and supplies through snow, mountains, and bandit territory.
She often carried a rifle and revolver to protect the mail and herself.
Locals nicknamed her “Stagecoach Mary.” While she wasn’t driving a modern diesel tractor-trailer, historians often point to her as one of the earliest Black women in freight transportation, essentially doing the same type of logistics work long before trucks existed.
In the late 1800’s, Annie Neal partnered with her freight hauler husband, William “Curly” Neal.
They moved ore, mail, and goods in Arizona. Annie rode shotgun on freight runs and helped operate a large freight operation in the late 1800s.
These two women of color predate the development of motorized freight trucks, but they clearly were involved in the freight , logistics transport business.
Trucking records rarely tracked race or gender in the early 1900s, this makes it difficult for historians to identify a single “first".
The exception was Luella Bates who became the first licensed female truck driver in the U.S. around 1918 when freight trucks were first being developed for WWI. This was primarily due to a publicity campaign to promote the vehicle. Luella Bates is related to Actress Ashley Hinshaw.
We were the first women's trucking organization to blog about the discovery of Luella Bates back in February 2014 when it was thought that Lillian Drennan was the first licensed female truck driver in the United States in 1929.
Our blog post about this is here> HERstory: Luella Bates and Lillian Drennan
However, Luella was not black, but recently her name has been used in an AI generated image to claim that she was, Luella’s name has also been wrongly used with an image of Rusty Dow, who was indeed another trucking industry trailblazer but from another era.
Facts matter when it comes to the history of women and especially women of color whose achievements have been largely erased from historical timelines.
It is disappointing to have learned that it was two other women's trucking associations that created these false images that are circulating on social media using Luella's name without doing proper research and hijacking the stories of other women truck drivers to rewrite history for click bait and likes. We unfortunately see it ever year during women's history month in the trucking industry.
Documentation of Black women operating commercial trucks appears later than Luella, but it doesn't mean it does not exist. Largely after WWII began and especially after civil-rights-era integration of trucking jobs. Early motor-truck era candidates of the 1920s–1930s historical records become frustrating to search because trucking was segregated and heavily unionized, which blocked Black drivers from many jobs.
Early trucking records also did not track gender or race, especially for independent or farm hauling. Because of that, historians have so far not identified a “first” Black woman driving a motor truck, though there are likely many we don’t know about in family archives.
The U.S. Army through the Women's Army Corps (noting that WAAC was redesignated WAC in 1943, and captions may simplify across that boundary) would be mostly the type of Military motor‑transport / truck driving (institutional fleet) women would have performed around the 1940's
The earliest clearly documented Black woman in a “CDL‑style” heavy‑truck driving role we can substantiate with open, high‑quality evidence is Priscilla Taylor, who was photographed and captioned as “an African American truck driver serving in the Women’s Army Corps” at Fort Huachuca in 1943.
The photo of Priscilla Taylor itself does not prove routes (local vs long‑haul), but the Fort Huachuca context strongly suggests base and training‑range logistics rather than interstate commercial long‑haul. Reba Caldwell, a (WAAC) was named in a press caption at Fort Huachuca; "convoy-driving" in 1943 in black press coverage. A secondary synthesis deriving from “BlackPast” claims Priscilla Taylor and Reba Caldwell performed notably while working with a 93rd Infantry Division convoy during desert training. The language is consistent with military motor‑transport work. 32nd and 33rd WAACS Headquarters Companies (World War II) | BlackPast.org. This establishes evidence that Black women were working hands‑on with Army trucks during WWII.
Ruth Wade and Lucille Mayo were identified in a U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph caption as WAAC auxiliaries demonstrating their ability to service trucks at Fort Huachuca on December 8, 1942.
This is stronger evidence of truck‑maintenance/motor‑pool work and suggests a pipeline into military motor‑transport duties, though it is not explicit proof of truck driving for these two women.
A National Archives curated list of WWII African American images includes a captioned entry stating: “Auxiliaries Ruth Wade and Lucille Mayo … demonstrate their ability to service trucks … taught … at Fort Des Moines and put into practice at Fort Huachuca,” dated December 8, 1942. This caption is also reproduced with full archival citation through the National Archives’ DocTeach lesson system and the National Archives’ own Flickr posting of the image.
Though she was not a driver, Clara Day is identified by the Teamsters’ own “Women in History” feature as a member of Local 743 in Chicago who began organizing at Montgomery Ward in 1953. Clara later served as a business agent and community services director. The U.S. Department of Labor also summarizes her early Teamsters organizing trajectory. The historiography of race in the early Teamsters emphasizes that racial practice varied widely by place and time, ranging from meaningful integration efforts to discrimination and local exclusion.
A major finding is that the historical records are structurally incomplete on race and gender and often are missing from licensing/occupational datasets, and many foundational sources for Black labor history.
Especially the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier, which are frequently paywalled or accessible mainly through institutional databases (e.g., ProQuest). As a result, “earliest” should be interpreted as “earliest we can document at this time with currently accessible evidence,” not a proof of absolute first. Gaps and assumptions shape what “earliest” can mean. Therefore, the strongest “earliest” truck‑driver evidence is photographic/captioned (LIFE) rather than license‑ledger based. There are still many more black women in trucking history we do not know about.
“CDL‑style” is necessarily an approximation for 1930s–1950s research because the modern commercial driver license (CDL) is a product of the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 and its implementing regime (e.g., CFP/49 CFR frameworks). In other words, a 1940s “truck driver” could be fully professional and licensed under state or military systems, but not “CDL” in the contemporary sense.
One exciting find is that Della Reese born Delloreese Patricia Early, an American singer, actress, television personality, author, and ordained minister whose career spanned over six decades worked a number of working‑class jobs before stardom, including as a commercial truck driver around 1949 which is documented through biographies and interviews.
She became the first Black woman to host her own talk show. Best known to many as Tess on Touched by an Angel (1994–2003), Reese also recorded gospel, jazz, pop, and blues, acted in films like Harlem Nights, and led the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church.
Through our own trademarked “Queen of the Road” and “Trucking Industry Trailblazer" awards that we presented between 2017 and 2023, we were able to meet many notable black women who were and still are truck drivers.
Some have moved on to other endeavors, and some have passed away.
Ikea Coley continues to be a force to be reckoned with though she has left truck driving to enter the tech industry taking with her the enthusiasm and positivity she brought with her to the trucking where she quickly excelled from student
to trainer to owner operator while sharing her weight loss journey. Ikea recently shared she is down 185 lbs. since 2018.
She was once quoted to say, as truck drivers “….only the strong survive. We are feeding America one load at a time. This job is not as easy as it looks, and it is a lifestyle that you must adapt to. Trucking has changed my life, and I do not regret it one bit”.
We met Kenyette Godhigh when she was still researching how to enter the trucking industry to become a CDL driver.
She left the professional sector and had to find ways to overcome cultural barriers and obstacles. When her CDL School instructor told her she “…just needed to give up because she just wasn’t getting the hang of things quick enough…”, she advocated for herself and said “I’ve been around me all my life. This is not insurmountable” and she negotiated more instruction time for herself.
Kenyette does not get distracted by noise; she knows how to focus. She got through her training successfully, later became an owner-operator and joined the REAL Women in Trucking Board of Directors
In 2024, she felt called by her faith to do more and used her CDL beyond traditional truck driving by working with Chef Jose' Andres' World Central Kitchin transporting mobile kitchen units to serve people affected in hurricane disaster areas, proving once again that resilience and purpose drive her every move.
Alta Brown grabbed our hearts with her sharp humor, tenacity and her unique sense of fashion. She was honored as a 2019 Trucking Industry Trailblazer award recipient.
Alta overcame a childhood that included incest and ongoing sexual assault in addition to racial prejudice. She grew up in Lakeland, Florida and had great difficulty learning which subjected her to ridicule throughout her life.
As a young woman, Alta battled addition and was incarcerated. She had to learn how to face her past and reinvent herself to survive. As a vulnerable black woman
with little education, she found herself at CRST Van Expedited where she experienced sexual harassment so severe she had to abandon her training when her trainer told her the only way he would pass her was if she had sex with him.
Alta refused and found another starter company that would hire her with her little bit of experience. By 2017, Alta had over a decade of trucking experience and became an owner-operator.
During a run through the high-altitude mountain region on I-70 in Colorado her lungs began to give out. Alta was taken by ambulance to the hospital where they found fluid in her lungs and a malignant 6lb tumor. She was forced to come off the road to face cancer treatments but held
hope of returning to truck driving. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Our friend Alta passed away in March of 2020, she is greatly missed. Alta was featured in the REAL Women in Trucking Coloring Book. It is available for free PRF download by clicking the cover image.
There are numerous black women truck drivers who are living legends.
They include Lillie who first drove in 1977 with her husband and became a fully licensed CDL driver in 1998, she was featured in our 2024 blog post “Tokenism isn’t Diversity” (Lillie's Image is Below)
Tracy Ellis, our 2018 Trucking Industry Trailblazer award winner, now a retired Long Beach California Port Driver began speaking out on abusive labor conditions and being misclassified as an independent contractor who was forced into the “Clean Truck Program” at the Port of Los Angeles.
One day, just after her truck was in maintenance, fiberglass shards that were left in the air ducts blasted into her lungs. Tracy owed just $3000.00 more on the truck when she was put into the ICU.
Since she was a misclassified worker, she had no health insurance and was left without a job and lost the truck she worked so hard to pay off before the medical incident.
Tracy became homeless but eventually started speaking out to city commissioners to defend the rights of port drivers, she later joined the union and was elected shop steward.
Edwina Webb, a mentor and friend to many drivers has a smile that can light up any room. Edwina is smart and savvy.
She received our 2020 “Queen of the Road” award in Las Vegas Nevada and was supported by her Arizona JB Hunt leadership team.
She began driving over 36 years ago when only one trucking company would hire African Americans.
Edwina has traversed all lower 48 states and though the trucking industry may seem to be very diverse now, Edwina can recall hearing racial slurs from dispatchers and at loading docks as well as from the public.
Edwina was the first female driver to achieve 3 million safe miles in company history while working for JB Hunt.
Black women have always been part of the backbone of freight movement in North America, even when the industry associations try to erase them or create false history using AI generated images, using names with altered biographies that distort that truth.
Their stories are not props, not aesthetic choices, and not images to be fabricated for clicks and likes. They are lived histories of grit, skill, resilience, and leadership.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we are honoring Black women truck drivers to recognize the real people who have hauled freight across generations, often without acknowledgment, representation, or credit.
The women featured here, in their own words, in real photographs, in documented history, remind us that the industry’s progress has always depended on those who were willing to do the work long before they were welcomed into it. Their contributions deserve accuracy, visibility, and respect. In a moment when technology can so easily rewrite reality, it becomes even more important to uplift the truth: Black women have helped shape trucking, they continue to shape trucking, and their stories must be told with integrity.
Women’s History Month is not just a celebration of the past; it’s a commitment to telling the truth. For us here at REAL Women in Trucking, it's about authenticity. Who built this industry and who keeps it moving today, and that truth is powerful enough on its own. Our tagline is "Know the Difference" for a reason.