Education that puts the history of people of color in the forefront and on wheels, has made its way to Springfield.

State Sens. Doris Turner and Ram Villivalam and state Rep. Thaddeus Jones are hosting the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mobile Museum of Tolerance (MMOT) to shed light on the Black experience on historic Route 66.

Open to the public free of charge, the museum arrived Tuesday at the Route 66 Historic Museum at 737 Cook St. and will remain open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. The mobile museum is a traveling classroom that gives presentations on the civil rights movement, Holocaust, and provides space for community discussion.

Turner said it was important to bring the museum to Springfield because it emphasizes the need to continue hard conversations. 

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"We’re living in turbulent times and even though we want to think that things that happened during the civil rights movement, Holocaust, and other impactful events in history are over, we’re actually seeing a resurgence of those same actions," she said. "It’s a different type of learning experience because you can feel and see the emotions of the individuals in this space and it provides that safeness to have conversations about how they see the world today and what they can do to make it better." 

Inspired by the Tour for Humanity in Canada, Allison Pure-Slovin, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Midwest region, said it was important to bring the same form of learning to the U.S. Illinois is the first state to pick up the initiative and she said the museum is unique because it’s a field trip that comes to you. 

“As educators are speaking they’re constantly reminded of heroes, the things they said, and why they were activists. You can see yourself in them because they’re not one people, one color, or one race, so we’re proud of the design and it’s very mobile in what it can do,” Pure-Slovin said.

Hosting on Route 66

Turner said she and her colleagues were intentional about hosting the event on Historic Route 66 because this year will be its 100th anniversary. With Abraham Lincoln’s house and the area of the 1908 Springfield race riot being blocks away, she said the location of the event puts history in your face. 

“It’s where our history of the civil rights movement, segregation, and the great migration along Route 66 intersects and that’s what the mobile museum is all about,” she said. “All those things were happening blocks away from where we are so it brings history alive.”

Turner said as a Black woman state senator the mobile museum made her emotional because seeing the people who came before her and their challenges speaks to her journey. 

“Its a great moment for me as the Illinois state senator that represents Springfield because my parents migrated to Springfield from Texas and talked a lot about the things that happened there and then seeing segregation and discrimination here. So for me to rise through all of that and be the first Black person to represent either Sangamon or Macon counties in either house of the General Assembly really speaks to my story,” she said.

“When I see the quotes flashing on the MMOT by historic people talking about how greatness is in you, that to me is history coming alive because you have to not be limited by what’s around you. It’s proud and emotional for me.”

The changeable museum layout allows for chairs to be moved around for workshops and give attendees a variety of options on how to interact and learn.

Pure-Slovin said if she had a learning experience like it when she was a child it would’ve made a difference in how she saw the world. 

“If I had something like this to give me a total picture of human rights injustices it would have given me a different lens because I, unfortunately, suffered from Anti-Semitism. In fifth grade I had to leave public school because I got beat up since I was a ‘dirty Jew’,” she said. “It was hard to understand that in fifth grade, I never understood it, but being here reminds me of the injustices of other people." 

Dr. Gina Lathan and Dr. Stacey Grundy, co-founders of the Historic Route 66 museum, said the MMOT serves to continuously heighten education. They said their museum highlights the backdrop of history in Springfield and the MMOT highlights the history on a broader level. 

“It speaks to the continuous need to provide the work we do, broaden awareness, and understand that even though the world has changed there’s still so much work to do,” Lathan said.

“The MMOT shows why we created Route History because it tells the stories that haven’t been told.” Grundy said.