The Napa Valley Wine Train is apologizing to a group of black women who were kicked off the train Saturday for reportedly laughing too loudly.
The women said their treatment was provoked by racial bias.
“It wasn’t an issue of bias,” train spokesman Sam Singer said. “It was an issue of noise.”
But the members of the Sistahs on the Reading Edge Book Club say they were targeted because they were laughing while black.
Sparking anger on social media with many saying they are boycotting the wine train, the women’s ordeal set off the hashtag #laughingwhileblack.