In May, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and Gov. JB Pritzker announced $4 million in grants for various projects along Route 66, including one to Springfield for an “interactive metaverse exhibit” that would focus on “the lived experiences of Black Americans traveling or living in communities along Route 66 throughout its history.”
Last week, the Springfield State Journal-Register reported more details on this endeavor, and it primarily will involve Route History, the museum and visitors center at 737 E. Cook St. in Springfield that is housed in a former Texaco gas station near several alignments of Route 66.
The newspaper talked to Gina Lathan, one of the owners of Route History, about the immersive experience. She said part of it would be tied to the Negro Motorist Green Book travel guides that were published from the 1930s to the mid-1960s during the segregation era.
The experience will allow travelers to confront restaurants which may have allowed Blacks to enter only through certain locations or not at all. It will feature “sundown towns,” places where it wasn’t safe for Black people to be after dark. Such communities made it known, often by posting signs, that Black people had to leave by sundown or face possible harm and discrimination.
Also highlighted along the route, Lathan said, are entertainment centers and “life-saving businesses,” those that responded to “the horror and violence that Black people experienced when they went to the wrong place at the wrong time for essential services and goods.” […]
“We’re really making sure we’re allowing this metaverse to be a mirror into history which will allow the visitor to have an up-close look at how people lived and had their experiences through travel particularly along Route 66 during those times,” Lathan said. […]
To make the experience as real as possible, Route History is working with local historic partners in each location, community-based organizations that may have done work in historic preservation, for instance, Lathan said, or museums or Black newspapers.
Lathan said she hopes the virtual experience is operating by the fall.
The $4 million in improvements seeks to build on and capitalize on Route 66 before its centennial in 2026.
(Image of a Negro Motorist Green Book cover from 1949)