Book club claims they were kicked off wine train because ‘they were black’

Members of a mostly black women’s book club say a luxe Napa Valley wine train kicked them off because of their race. The 11 members of the Sisters on the Reading Edge book club, all but one of whom is African American, say the Napa Valley Wine Train ordered them off Saturday, mid-journey. As debate built Monday on social media under the hashtag #laughingwhileblack, wine train spokesman Sam Singer said train employees had asked the women to either quiet down or get off the wine train and accept a free bus ride back to their starting point.

We still feel this is about race. We were singled out.

Book club member Lisa Renee Johnson.

A manager on the train repeatedly told the women they were laughing and talking too loudly, book-club member Lisa Renee Johnson told San Francisco television station KTVU. “We didn’t do anything wrong,” said Johnson, who chronicled the episode via cellphone videos. On Facebook, Twitter and Yelp on Monday, defenders of the women posted videos of other, past noisy groups celebrating on the wine train, and they debated the wine train’s action with its supporters. Wine-train employees marched the book club members through six railroad cars before escorting them off the train, the women said.

Police arrived at the railway siding and found “there was no crime being committed… nobody was intoxicated, there were no issues… So officers left.

Police spokeswoman Maria Gonzalez said.

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