Courageous Motorists: African American Pioneers on Route 66 presented by NPS historian Frank Norris
Date & Time
Saturday, July 20, 2019
1:30 pm
Cost
Free
Phone
3098270428
At 1:30 p.m. in the second floor Governor Fifer Courtroom, retired historian for the National Park Service, Frank Norris, will present Courageous Motorists: African American Pioneers on Route 66. Driving on Route 66 suggests the freedom of the open road, the chance to discover America behind the wheel, and the fascination of heading out west. But as the recent motion picture The Green Book suggests, African Americans during the Jim Crow era could not drive on either Route 66 or other American roads without navigating an often hostile world in which most motels, restaurants, and other roadside services refused service to them. Norris’s presentation will show what it was like for African Americans to drive west on Route 66, and how that experienced changed over the years as the west developed and racial attitudes began to change.