MUNCIE — An interactive way to learn about Civil Rights is on display at Minnetrista.
The Freedom Bus is a hands-on civil rights museum built in a retired city bus, said Beth Messner, associate professor of communication studies at Ball State University.
This free-to-the-public display explores the Civil Rights movement in Indiana, specifically, East Central Indiana. Visitors can trace the Underground Railroad routes on a map of the state, pick up a phone to hear from local leaders in the movement and more.
The bus is open during Minnetrista’s regular hours. Visitors just need to request a tour at the front desk, said Max Fettchenhauer, the experience guide manager for the Freedom Bus.
Tours are mostly self-guided, but someone from the museum will be there to unlock the bus and guide visitors.
The Freedom Bus was Beatrice Moten-Foster’s idea, Messner said. Moten-Foster was the founder of the Martin Luther King Dream Team.
After acquiring a retired city bus, the MLK Dream Team worked on the project until unaffordable mechanical problems caused them to shelve it. This was in the early 2000s.
The project was reopened in 2014 and handed to Messner, who joined the MLK Dream Team in 2010, to complete, she said. It became an immersive learning project at Ball State University, where four semesters of students worked to research history, design exhibits and pilot the bus.
Through their research, they discovered many people, especially the fourth- and fifth-graders who were their target audience, didn’t know the full Civil Rights movement, Messner said. Many thought it was just a southern movement.
They decided to focus on East Central Indiana to show people that the Civil Rights movement happened where they lived, too, Messner said.
“We wanted to situate it in the places that our audience didn’t associate it with, but was their home, so that they understood this was a fight that had to do with them, too,” she said.
The bus opened for the first time in 2016, on display at Minnetrista before acting as a traveling museum. Messner said people would pull her aside to tell her they had personally known some of the people highlighted in the exhibits.
The reaction to the bus has been mostly positive, Messner said, though there was an incident the fall after it opened. Someone broke into the bus, sprayed a fire extinguisher and damaged the exhibit about Southside High School.
Messner said she thinks it had to do with timing, because Southside was being turned into a middle school, and many in the community felt betrayed that the high school was being dissolved.
In 2019, the bus experienced mechanical problems and it was pulled from use, Messner said.
The only thing they weren’t able to repair was the bus ramp, Cunningham said. They’re still working on a solution to make the experience more accessible.
Visitors to the bus can take a free book with them at the end of the tour.
“Belonging begins with understanding our shared stories. The ‘Freedom Bus’ brings forward the voices of East Central Indiana’s civil rights movement: people who stood up, spoke out, and helped shape a more just community,” wrote Brea Cunningham, director of marketing and communications at Minnetrista Museum & Gardens.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Hands-on Freedom Bus exhibit reopens at Minnetrista
Reporting by Kenna Hartian / Muncie Star Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
