How ‘Lovecraft Country’ Cars Help Tell the Story of Driving While Black
Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorIn HBO’s “Lovecraft Country,” Atticus Freeman, played by Jonathan Majors, is in 1950s America, in the era of Jim Crow laws, driving on a quest to find his missing father.Cars play a vital role in the series, as production designer Kalina Ivanov points out, “Black people used cars in the ’50s as a means to survive.” And as we see in the first episode, Atticus finds himself encountering a racist sheriff played by Jamie Harris, who reminds Atticus he’s driving through a sundown town (a town that banned Black people after dark).