May 4, 2026, 4:09 a.m. CT
For many people, Route 66 brings to mind hot-rod cars, palm trees and a sense of freedom. But that wasn’t the experience for all travelers who drove along the highway.
For travelers who weren’t White, especially before desegregation, a trip along the Mother Road meant packing lunches so you didn’t have to worry about a restaurant not serving you, or driving through the night because you weren’t sure if a hotel would rent you a room. In some cases, families even brought along extra gasoline and empty coffee cans, because some gas stations wouldn’t let African American travelers use their pumps or restrooms.
A group of Missouri State University professors are putting together an exhibit to highlight those experiences, using first-hand accounts of African American Springfieldians collected more than a decade ago. “The mOTHER Road: Stories of the African American Experience on Route 66” will be at Benton Avenue AME Church from June 3 to Aug. 29.
In addition to artifacts and written information, the exhibit will also feature a 7-minute video incorporating oral histories from MSU’s digital collection. Professors Lyle Foster, Leonard Horton, Judith Martinez and Ximena Uribe-Zarain also hope to host panel discussions at other places that show the exhibit.
“Part of the idea is to make sure that the community, particularly in this centennial year of Route 66, can actually be aware of” the African American experience, Foster said.
Exhibit, research fill a gap in ‘selective memory’
Despite each professor being part of a different department, Foster, Horton, Martinez and Uribe-Zarain came together with the idea of doing something for the Route 66 centennial.
A look into previous scholarly works revealed a gap: While there was research about the African American experience on Route 66 across the nation and research about Route 66 in Springfield, there wasn’t anything about the African American experience or the communities that came together to support their fellow travelers along the highway in southwest Missouri.
“We have some (research) in New Mexico, especially because of Native Americans. We have tons in California,” Uribe-Zarain said. “We have other stories, but nothing around Springfield and the Ozarks.”
Oral histories from the Missouri State University digital collections helped fill in that gap. The exhibit is based on the preliminary results of the professors’ research, which they are in the process of publishing in academic journals.
Across 19 oral histories, the collaboration identified four main points: Segregation varied block-by-block in Springfield; the Black community built its own map of safety along Route 66; navigating the landscape was something that was learned and taught across generations; and for many African American Springfieldians or travelers, Route 66 wasn’t a road of leisure, but of emotional and physical labor.
“Really, what we want this to be is public memory,” Uribe-Zarain said. “Our ultimate aim is to get the stories out so that the selective memory that we have of what historical facts are include these lived experiences of African Americans.”
Both Uribe-Zarain and Foster emphasized during a panel presenting the research that this work isn’t meant to dampen the centennial celebrations or say that African Americans only had bad experiences on Route 66. Rather, it’s about giving a more complete picture of the iconic road and sharing stories that go beyond the prevailing narrative.
“We’re not trying to put down Route 66. Route 66 existed and we can’t deny that, but we want to make sure there’s a complete narrative of the experiences on Route 66,” Foster said. “I think that’s the cry of our nation. We want to make sure everybody’s story gets to be told, celebrated, respected and reflected upon.”
Green Book, places like Miss Alberta’s Hotel were lifelines for African American travelers
The exhibit will highlight oral histories as well as businesses in Springfield that made travel safer for the African American community.
During the time that Route 66 was active, Missouri was one of the top two states in the Midwest with the most “sundown” towns, Foster said. Named for the signs that instructed people of color to leave before the sun set, sundown towns were all-White towns or areas where segregation was enforced through laws, intimidation or violence.
A guide called “The Negro Motorist Green Book” helped African American travelers navigate these situations by advertising restaurants, gas stations and hotels that would serve them and even private homes that would rent rooms to travelers.
“The Green Book was pretty much like a GPS system for people who were not White to know where they could stay, to know where they could eat, to know where they could find safety and refuge,” Foster said.
During the segregation era, stories from African American musicians and performers showed the paradoxical situation they often encountered. While a theater or concert hall would host a Black performer, their celebrity didn’t allow them the ability to stay in the “finer” hotels.
“One of the really ironic things about our history locally is that you had these national celebrities that would perform at the Shrine Mosque before huge crowds, but when it came to going to bed at night, they couldn’t stay in the Kentwood Arms Hotel,” Foster said. “… But at the same time, it was also a social refuge because they were with that local community of people” who were astounded but also thrilled by the fact that celebrities like Duke Ellington or Henry Belafonte were eating, talking and joking with them.
Going from research to exhibit
Research papers are often difficult to understand, steeped in scholarly language and theory that doesn’t make for easy public consumption. The research that begat The mOTHER Road is different.
Foster is a professor in the department of sociology, anthropology and gerontology, and the university’s sociology program focuses on a subfield called “public sociology.” The branch of study lends itself to bridging the gap between academia and the public.
“A lot of times in academia, we kind of pontificate and share our theoretical ideas and knowledge, but it’s not always practical or applicable in the community,” Foster said. “Public sociology takes the lens of, ‘Let’s immerse ourselves in the community and come up with community-based responses and solutions’ particularly to social problems.”
This approach allows people to look at history and ask what they can learn from it and “how can it inform them, now and in the future,” Foster said. While it’s tempting to think that history is cut and dry, the reality is messier and often more painful.
“I think a lot of the work is really trying to figure out, in terms of this, what is the history of Springfield? What is really the history of Route 66? It’s a multifaceted history. Certain narratives have become what I would describe as the ‘most palatable’ story,” Foster said. “… There are some things that are very uncomfortable, and maybe we just want to pretend, we’d rather forget, or not talk about it. I think the opportunity with public sociology is to even take the things that are difficult, because we must wrestle with those things.”
