SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - This year marks the 100th anniversary of Route 66, and the California Automobile Museum is featuring exhibits throughout the year celebrating the historic highway. Even with multiple displays, there is far too much history connected to Route 66 to present it all.

One of the current exhibits is “Route 66: The Black Experience – Navigating the Mother Road During the Jim Crow Era.” It explains that the 1930 census identified 44 of the 89 counties along Route 66 as “sundown towns,” all-white communities that posted signs stating Black people had to leave by sundown. 

Many Black travelers in the West avoided small towns and preferred larger cities, but even there the accommodations were limited. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, only six of the city’s 100 motels admitted Black guests.

The exhibit does not mention Victor Hugo Green (1892 to 1960), an American postal worker from Harlem, New York City, who created “The Green Book” to help Black travelers navigate segregated America safely.

The California State Automobile Association (AAA) became well known for its travel guides, but “The Green Book” served a very different purpose. Published annually from 1936 to 1966, it provided a comprehensive guide to hotels, restaurants, gas stations and other businesses that welcomed Black travelers, offering essential information during an era when racial discrimination was widespread.

Another current display focuses on what many consider the most dangerous section of Route 66: eight miles, 191 turns and no guardrails. Sitgreaves Pass was the only route between Kingman, Arizona, and the California city of Needles. The west side plunges a dizzying 700 feet in two miles through many, many switchbacks. 

In the 1940s, people often hired drivers or had their vehicles towed up the grade, usually at night in cooler temperatures. This pass still attracts the adventurous and the curious, especially motorcycle enthusiasts and even cyclists.

The California Automobile Museum also has an excellent display about American photographer Dorothea Lange. 

For more than 40 years, America’s most iconic Dust Bowl migrant remained anonymous until a reporter from The Modesto Bee found her living exactly 76 miles from where museum visitors are standing today.

“Migrant Mother” was taken in 1936 at a pea pickers’ camp in California. Lange had been sent by the government to document the struggles of migrant farm workers who came west.

Lange never asked the names of the 32-year-old woman and her three children, but she made notes after spending 10 minutes taking seven remarkable photographs.

In 1978, reporter Emmett Corrigan tracked down Florence Owens Thompson, the previously anonymous subject, in a trailer park near Modesto.

Although many may not recognize Lange’s name or know the identity of the “Migrant Mother,” they recognize the face as a wordless testament to the hardships endured by travelers and migrants during a defining chapter of American history.