The Brief

One of America’s most iconic roads is turning 100 this year: Route 66.

Affectionately known as the Mother Road, the historic route idealized ‘getting your kicks’ on a road trip and driving West with the top down. The aspirational ideal of Southern California probably wouldn’t be the same without it, with Route 66 ending at the ultimate sunny destination: the Pacific Ocean.

But beyond the nostalgia, the Main Street of America has another history: a path for migration to the West. Black Americans used it to escape the South during the Jim Crow era, but for them, it was far from a dreamy getaway drive. It’s part of the dark underbelly of Route 66.

Route 66 history 

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the famed Hollyhock House, once described Route 66 as a “giant chute, down which everything loose in this country is sliding into Southern California.” He was right. Route 66 was, in some ways, a perfect road.

Built in 1926, just before the Great Depression, the path was southern enough to avoid the snow and open all-year round. Crossing eight states and over 2,000 miles, it was designed to link rural communities as far away as Illinois to Southern California.

It was the first highway in the country to be fully-paved in 1938 — a luxury at the time — making it vital to trucking companies and commercial trade. And soon after it also took on a military role. After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the U.S. government decided the Pacific Coast needed more protection, so it invested billions of dollars and moved thousands of military members to California. A desert training facility was also established along the road.

Migration on the Mother Road

The road was also useful for people going on vacations or visiting family. However, its role in migration might be the most influential. Route 66 became an escape route during urgent moments of need, for both Black and white families. Author and cultural documentarian Candacy Taylor has studied Black travel and Route 66 extensively. She said white families used it as a means to get away.

“It became this route for mostly white Americans escaping poverty… [or] the stock market crash in Chicago,” Taylor said. “These men were just saying, ‘well, we’ll just leave and we’ll go to California where it’s better.’ So, the route became this really important method to find salvation for white folks.”

A section of Route 66 near Prewitt, New Mexico in 2003. Rita Powdrell and her sister ended up taking Route 66 a second time to migrate to New Mexico for college.

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For Black Americans, it was about fleeing the crushing prejudice of Jim Crow laws in the South. Taylor said depending where you lived, there were three main paths to take. If you were around the East Coast, you’d likely follow the coast up to New York. If you were in the Mid-South, like Alabama, you’d take the railway up to Chicago.

If you were closer to the West coast, such as Texas, you’d head to Los Angeles, making Route 66 one of the best ways to get out. But it was also highly dangerous.

Racism on Route 66

Rita Powdrell is the 79-year-old director of the African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico. But when she was 16, in 1963, Powdrell got her first taste of the West — and Route 66. Her family traveled to California so her father could attend a National Medical Association conference in L.A.

“We took a week to get to L.A. and we camped all the way to Arizona because my father didn’t want to encounter the segregated hotels and motels that you find along the way,” she said. “He wanted to make sure we’d have a safe space to spend the night when we stopped.”

She remembered they camped on national parkland, and that it was her sister’s job to check all the parks to make sure they had toilets instead of outhouses. Powdrell recalled how cold it was camping, seeing beautiful forests, taking in the smells of the outdoors and her mother cooking over a charcoal fire.

She didn’t realize why the family was camping at the time — which felt like a vacation — but Powdrell said she learned about it later on.

It wasn’t just the segregated hotels that needed to be avoided. Route 66 went through a lot of sundown towns, white communities which prohibited Black people from staying after sunset. If you found yourself in one of these towns after dark, Taylor said it wouldn’t be good.

“There was usually either some kind of sign that said ‘N-word don’t let the sun set on you here’, or they would ring a bell at 6 p.m. because,” she said, “Black people who were working in the towns, that was their cue… to leave, because you shouldn’t be there.”

At best you’d be harassed for staying and escorted to the border, according to Taylor. At worst, your life would be at risk. Sundown towns were known for bigoted people who would carry out beatings, lynchings and other serious threats.

“ Given that 44 of the 89 counties on Route 66 were sundown towns, traveling Route 66 was like a minefield,” Taylor said.

The Green Book

Black travelers had to plan ahead, just like Powdrell’s father. You’d have to bring your own supplies on long drives, like cans to urinate in, extra lunch boxes for meals and bedding to sleep in. It was fairly common for Black drivers to crash on Route 66 as well. According to Taylor, the NAACP told a local newspaper that the crashes were happening because sleep-deprived drivers couldn’t find a place to sleep.

This is where the Green Book came in. It was essentially a national Black Yellow Pages, a key for survival. The travel guide was written by postal carrier Victor Hugo Green for Black folks to find safe places to visit. You could find welcoming communities and things like rest stops, restaurants, gas stations and even real estate offices. While there were multiple Black travel guides, the Green Book was the longest-running and most well-known, published between 1936 and 1967.

“As far as movement, the freedom to move comfortably from one space to another,” Powdrell said, “I think that’s what the Green Book gives African Americans.” She doesn’t know if her father used it on their trip, but Powdrell said it helped people avoid discrimination — like she experienced traveling.

As her family got closer to California, they stopped camping and began to look for motels. Her father thought they’d be fine the closer they got to the coast.

“I remember us going from motel to motel and they would have the vacancy sign out and as soon as my dad would walk in, they would say, ‘oh, we just rented the last room. We’re so sorry.’” she said. “That happened a few times and I could feel the anxiety of my parents because it’s night, they hadn’t planned on camping anywhere.”

Once they reached Barstow in California, it became crystal clear the progressive state in the 1960s wasn’t immune to racism. It was a hot day, so Powdrell and her sister wanted to swim in the hotel pool.

“ We run down to the pool, we get in and all the other guests get out of the pool as soon as we get in,” she recalled.

Since Powdrell was a teenager, she was old enough to know of racism but still hadn’t yet experienced it like she did on this trip. Growing up, her father was the first African American doctor in the Pennsylvania state hospital system. They were the only Black children in an all-white environment. She said because of that her perception of prejudice and segregation was a little skewed.

“When I’m traveling, I’m really thinking that the country is a more accepting place than it is,” she said. “So the type of treatment we start to get as we travel Route 66 — I don’t know how to explain it, but it floods you with an immense sense of shaming. That there’s something wrong with you. That you’re not allowed into these spaces.”

Today, Powdrell admires her father for coming up with an enjoyable camping experience, despite the circumstances. She said it’s another sign of the “sovereign resilience” of Black Americans to resist restrictions on movement, a cornerstone of segregation.

The end of Route 66

Route 66’s demise came with the creation of the Interstate Highway system, through the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.

The interstate was designed to be straight and fast, a superior alternative to Route 66, which intentionally wound through remote towns. Because it was straight, the speed limit was higher, so people could even drive faster.

In L.A. County, the 10 Freeway took the place of Route 66, opening in Santa Monica in the 1960s. The route was ultimately decommissioned in 1985 and removed from the U.S. highway system.

The 10 Freeway west of the East Los Angeles Interchange on March 20, 2026.

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The building of the freeway system often cut through Black neighborhoods, said D’Artagnan Scorza, executive director of racial equity for L.A. County.

“The thing about Route 66 in particular is that while it opened the door for western migration, the freeways built in L.A. undermined a lot of the gains that Black communities made,” Scorza said.

He pointed to Sugar Hill in West Adams, a once wealthy Black neighborhood in L.A. County that was split in half by the 10 Freeway’s construction. That, along with redlining and urban renewal, meant Black and brown communities did not have the political power to fight back, he said.

And now, Black communities are leaving the metropolitan areas where they initially gathered, like South L.A. According to Michael Stoll, a professor of public policy and urban planning at UCLA, families are increasingly moving to places like the Inland Empire and Antelope Valley largely because of housing costs and gentrification.

While transit is just one part of systemic issues facing Southern California, Route 66 is an example of how roads are never just roads. Over 100 years, it’s redefined the West and influenced what happens to communities.

If you're online, anywhere adjacent to the World Cup, you'll see that the Argentina team, which will play England in the semifinals Wednesday, is attracting a lot of criticism.

It can be largely grouped into two categories: soccer and culture. In soccer, Argentina’s comeback win against Egypt last week prompted accusations, including from Egypt’s head coach, that the FIFA referees in that match favored Argentina.

Meanwhile, cultural clichés online accuse Argentines of being arrogant and looking down on other Latin Americans.

“I get sad,  I must say, that when I see that, it hurts me a little bit, to be honest,” said San Fernando Valley resident Roxana Lissa. She was born and raised in Argentina and moved to the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

But she's used to it.

“The thing about Argentines is we have such thick skin,” Lissa said.

California’s Argentine population has grown in the past couple of decades. The state is now home to the second-largest concentration of Argentines in the U.S. after Florida.

Exclusion by other Latinos

The negative comments are not new, but social media has fueled them into a firestorm.

Some Argentines in Southern California say they’ve not seen negativity this bad against their culture before.

Mariana Ferrero, who moved to the U.S. from Argentina when she was 13 years old, said the comments are opening old wounds of exclusion by other Latino immigrants in Southern California.

“What bothers me is [the criticism] goes beyond soccer. It's more of saying, "Oh, you're Argentinian. You're not a real Latina,'” Ferrero said.

She says many Latinos assume she’s privileged because she’s lighter skinned.

But Ferrero says her background is not like that at all. Argentina’s struggling economy led Ferrero’s parents to leave their home, their language and their country.

“We packed up. We came here. We lived with nothing in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, worked really hard, odd jobs,” she said.

Ferrero has some explanation for the hostility, however.

“I think some of it is just a perception that we come from a country that tends to be proud and tends to be loud and tends to be boisterous about our wins and about our accomplishments. And let me tell you, there's not many of them,” Ferrero said.

Since soccer prowess is one of those few wins, she says she and other Argentines are going to take this World Cup as an opportunity to be loud and proud.

IRL people love Argentines

Ferrero and Lissa say people who’ve visited Argentina gush to them about the warmth and hospitality of its people and the country’s beauty. And few people question that Argentina soccer star Lionel Messi is one of the greatest soccer players of all time.

“I was wearing my Argentina jersey,” Lissa said of a visit during the World Cup to L.A.’s Guelaguetza Oaxacan restaurant to watch Mexico play.

“People were coming to me and saying, 'I love Messi. I love Messi.' And I felt for the first time, 'Damn, I'm not being criticized,'” she said.

Pablo Baler, a professor of Latin American literature at CSU L.A., says the disconnect during this World Cup may be that people don’t believe Argentina represents the underdog soccer nations of Latin America anymore.

“At times, [the team] can feel more like a corporation than a national team, but the country it represents was in many ways the victim of the same imperial powers now competing for the title: France, England and Spain,” he said.

Baler grew up in Argentina and has many Latin American friends. He doesn’t believe the negativity against his homeland will tarnish its reputation. He said a Nicaraguan friend said to him this week that he’s proud Argentina made it to the World Cup semifinals because the team is “one of us.”

Topline

The background: In June, the City Council voted to establish the moratorium as city staff drafted a proposal for a permanent citywide ban. At the time, the moratorium was authorized for 45 days.

The issue first made its way to city hall earlier this year after a group of neighbors raised concerns that a proposed new In-N-Out in Culver City could hurt air quality and create safety issues for pedestrians.

Status of the proposed ban: Culver City staff wrote in a report to City Council this week that they’ve begun drafting a potential permanent ban on new drive-thrus citywide.

The proposal will first go to the city’s planning commission, a five-person body that makes recommendations to the City Council on development and zoning matters in the city, then head to the City Council for a final vote. Those dates have not yet been set.

One councilmember left door open for a different approach: At Monday’s meeting, Councilmember Albert Vera, who was among the four votes supporting the moratorium extension, said he would be open to seeing recommendations from the planning commission that don’t ban drive-thrus citywide outright.

The contractor building the long-awaited LAX People Mover project has filed a lawsuit alleging the city of L.A. breached its contract in several disputes.

In the suit, filed with the L.A. County Superior Court on July 9, LINXS alleges the city is misplacing blame in construction-related disputes and refusing to extend contract deadlines. LINXS also alleges it’s owed additional payment for the work as a result of the delays.

The project, a 2.25-mile-long elevated train designed to transport riders between airport terminals and local transit, is currently undergoing testing. Work on the train is scheduled to be complete “in a few months,” according to a June interview with Los Angeles World Airports CEO John Ackerman on the L.A. in a Minute podcast.

Chief among the disputes detailed in the lawsuit is one involving repairs to faulty electrical equipment in the system that powers the train, resulting in testing delays last year. LAist reported on this dispute last November and in April.

A spokesperson for LINXS said it has attempted to engage in “extensive good-faith efforts over the past two years” to resolve the ongoing contractual disputes.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that manages LAX, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. They added that the agency remains committed to “delivering a safe, durable and reliable” train as soon as possible.

The L.A. City Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In its lawsuit, LINXS said that by not granting the contractor’s compensation and time-extension requests, the city is attempting to evade accountability for the delayed train, which was once expected to open in 2023 and is nearly a billion dollars over budget.

The contractor warned in its lawsuit that without an extension of contract deadlines, it might be forced to repay lenders who financed the project as soon as this fall. In that case, the contractor said in its lawsuit that it could become “insolvent and unable to perform,” adding that possibility would have “catastrophic consequences.”

Dispute over metering cabinet

Last February, staff from Los Angeles World Airports and the city’s Department of Water and Power directed LINXS to repair equipment in a metering cabinet that had degraded due to moisture and debris, as LAist previously reported.

LINXS completed the repair work, which required power to be partially shut down between February and July 2025. That temporary power disruption delayed critical testing of the technology that allows for central control of the People Mover’s systems.

LINXS said last year, and also in the current lawsuit, that the repair work is not in its scope of work. As a result, the contractor has said it's owed compensation and a minimum of a 141-day extension to complete construction.

“Since then, [Los Angeles World Airports] has stonewalled the discussions of [LINXS’] compensation and a time extension,” the contractor alleges in its lawsuit.

LINXS, citing information it received from a public records request, alleges the issue stemmed from an instance where LADWP opened the metering cabinet in September 2024 to rectify design issues with the equipment contained in it.

Whereas past disputes between LINXS and the airport were resolved through settlements that have so far totaled hundreds of millions of dollars and resulted in schedule extensions, the dispute over maintaining electrical equipment has been uniquely contentious.

“Other relief events that we’ve dealt with up to this point … we could agree there were some things that were not totally within LINXS’ control,” Jake Adams, an airport executive who is overseeing $5.5 billion in LAX upgrades, said in an interview with LAist in April. “This relief event is very different. We believe there is absolutely no merit to this claim.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the contractor is owed additional time and money for several other ongoing disputes, including that Los Angeles World Airports is refusing to sign a power agreement with LADWP for solar panels installed as part of the People Mover project and that workers on separate airport projects have “demolished” work LINXS completed for the train.

What’s the status of the People Mover?

The People Mover is operating in a testing phase where it simulates how the train will operate when it begins shuttling travelers between airport terminals and the L.A. Metro system.

The testing of the train won’t be impacted by the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports told LAist.

A hearing on the case filed last week has been scheduled for December, according to the L.A. County Superior Court’s website.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will pause non-urgent vehicle stops after two deadly shootings in less than a week, Maine Sen. Angus King's office tells NPR.

King spokesman Matthew Felling says the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the policy shift. Maine Sen. Susan Collins also posted Tuesday on X that she had called for change.

"I spoke with DHS Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops," she wrote.

DHS told NPR in a statement that it will not "disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics," and it's unclear what this change will look like in practice.

The most recent death happened Monday in Biddeford, Maine, where ICE agents tried to pull over the car of 26-year-old Joan Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national.

"The vehicle attempted to flee the scene, and fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon," DHS said in a statement. However, the agency has not provided any evidence to back the claims. The agents were not wearing body cameras.

Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by agents in Houston after they attempted to pull him over. The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo tried to use his van as a weapon, prompting an agent to fire their weapon. But passengers in the van have disputed this account.

Paul Hunker, the former chief counsel of ICE in Dallas, told NPR the standards and principles of when to discharge a firearm are clear.

"I was an attorney for the officers — the person has to pose an imminent threat of harm to use deadly force," Hunker said.

He said whether the person poses an imminent threat is always from the perspective of the officer.

DHS policy

The Department of Homeland Security's policy says deadly force cannot be used solely to prevent someone from fleeing … unless the person poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm to the agent or others.

DHS accused Salgado Araujo of weaponizing his car against the ICE officer. In Maine, the agency said Durán Guerrero posed a public safety threat.

But in these cases, there hasn't been video evidence to back up those allegations.

The latest development has been welcomed by former DHS officials who said a reset is needed in order to regain the trust of the public and ensure no more lives are lost.

"That person could flee and present a big danger to people around them … that's one of the reasons I think there are few vehicle chases because of the danger and the harm that could happen if one of those goes bad." Hunker said.

He said in the past, ICE's preference has been to assume custody of the undocumented immigrants who were already in jails, making it safer for the agents.

Sarah Saldaña, a former ICE acting director under President Barack Obama, said the shift in policy is a good start.

"I think it's a very practical thing to do until the agency can get its officers more properly trained and attuned to what their effort is," Saldaña said. "Immigration enforcement should not be a deadly endeavor — it should be a method by which to make sure that people are complying with the law."

Despite the shift in policy, there are a lot of outstanding questions about what led to the fatal shootings of Salgado Araujo in Houston last week, and of Durán Guerrero in Maine this week.

None of the federal immigration agents were wearing body cameras, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

After the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, DHS vowed to quickly deploy body cameras to federal immigration agents nationwide.

But that hasn't happened.

The agency is blaming Democrats in Congress and the partial government shutdowns for this. But it is, again, vowing to deploy body cameras for all agents in the next 60 days.

That footage would have been key to knowing whether the agents followed protocol or not, and to hold the agents accountable, said Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the nonprofit National Police Accountability Project.

"Luckily in both instances there were witnesses, independent witnesses, that observed some things and were able to share some information," Bonds said. "But it's really hard to be able to hold ICE agents accountable in any manner if all we're getting from DHS right now is kind of vague statements about the car being used in a way that was either threatening the ICE agents or, in the case of Maine, threatening the public."

Bonds said the public needs to keep demanding answers and independent investigations to create a change in policy — like the pause on traffic stops made public Tuesday.

NPR's Meg Anderson contributed reporting.