The Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership, along with the U.S. Route 66 Centennial Commission, a few days ago announced they are launching a Route 66 Black Experiences Grant Program as part of the highway’s centennial celebrations culminating in 2026.
According to a news release from the partnership:
The Road Ahead was awarded a $250,000 grant by American Express to provide direct grants to help Black-owned and/or operated businesses and attractions, and to support research and programs designed to interpret and tell the stories of Black experiences associated with Route 66. The Route 66 Black Experiences Grant Program is part of the Road Ahead!s broader effort to celebrate the road’s Centennial by helping the millions of people who live, work, and travel along Route 66 through projects focused on preservation, promotion, research/education, and the economic development of Route 66.
More about the goals of the program:
• Improvement of local economies via projects designed to retain and sustain African
American owned/operated businesses along Route 66, helping them to maintain existing
and create new jobs.
• Strengthen healthy race relations via nationwide educational projects focused on re-
search, interpretation and analysis of African-American and Black history on Route 66.
Stories of African American experiences along Route 66 have not been fully told. The BE Grant
Program intends to better inform the larger national population by helping people more fully
understand and appreciate African-Americans’ experiences along Route 66 as specifically told
in their own words. People of color do not typically share the nostalgia of Route 66 or its
widely accepted narrative of U.S. history. The BE Grant Program seeks to balance the historical
record with a fuller history that authentically represents African-American experiences along
Route 66. It is a way to honor and learn from this icon of “living history”, with the intent of
positively impacting the current racial climate in our country. The aim of the program’s initial
steps is to produce potential, quantifiable impacts related to improved race relations including
expansion and establishment of “Not In Our Town” organizations across Route 66, as well as
increased numbers of African Americans choosing to travel and live along Route 66.
The BE Grant Program will also support projects focused on the location and identity of Green
Book sites. The Green Book was a travel guide published from 1936-67 during the Jim Crow
era when African-Americans faced severe discrimination and danger on Route 66. […] Because so many Green Book sites along Route 66 have been demolished or ceased to exist, there is also a great need for oral histories, focused research, and data collecIon that presents as full a picture as possible of the role these places played in the history of Route 66. Awards could also be made to Green Book sites that physically remain, to help preserve, develop, and interpret them. In terms of impacts, the number of Green Book site markers installed can be documented, with over 400 potenIal sites along Route 66 possible. Other quanIfiable data can be gathered on the number of Green Book stories preserved and oral histories related to Route 66 Green Book sites collected.
Applications for the grant program are being accepted through March 4 and are available at route66roadahead.org. Awards will be announced by March 25.
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