Missouri State University’s new exhibit, titled “The mOTHER Road: Stories of the African American Experience on Route 66,” will open June 3 at the Benton Avenue AME Church in Springfield, Missouri.
The exhibit will be up through Aug. 29. The renovated church, located on the Drury University campus, is at 830 N. Benton Ave. (Google Maps link), about two blocks north of a Route 66 alignment.
More about the exhibit:
The exhibit will consist of multiple components including banners, media and artifacts from Ms. Alberta’s Hotel which was featured in the Green Book and is one of the African-American trail sites in town. The media exhibit features clips from residents who share their experiences traversing Route 66 primarily during the 20th century. Markers from the Springfield Greene County African-American Heritage Trail that contain Route 66 History and the important Green Book are also a part of the exhibit.
We will also feature the Trail markers which have tie in to Route 66 …. there are three of them and references to the Green Book and the locations in our city. […]
The aim of this exhibit is to bring attention to additional narratives of Route 66 as lived social terrain. While recent scholarship has documented segregation, sundown towns, and the critical role of the Negro Motorist Green Book at a national scale, far less is known about how these dynamics unfolded in specific local contexts. This absence is especially striking given that Route 66 did not merely pass through communities but reshaped their economic, spatial, and social arrangements. The road’s celebrated promise of connection and prosperity coexisted with systems of racial exclusion that structured who could travel safely, where one could stop, and whose labor sustained roadside economies. Recovering these histories requires moving beyond generalized accounts and toward localized, primary source–driven inquiry.
Springfield, Missouri holds a particular significance in this story: it is where Route 66 was officially designated in 1926, anchored at the city’s central square. At the turn of the 20th century, Springfield was home to a substantial Black population with deep roots in the city’s commercial and civic life, including business owners, property holders, and community institutions concentrated in Midtown and North Springfield. These local histories shaped how African American residents experienced the arrival and operation of Route 66 as a space layered onto an already racialized city and not as a neutral transportation corridor.
The historic church was once led by the Rev. Oliver L. Brown, lead plaintiff in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education court decision in 1954 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The church now functions as a civil rights education center and museum space.
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