An artist from Cleveland, Ohio is remodeling a classic 1947 Greyhound bus that he rescued from a Pennsylvania dump to become a travel museum.
Robert Louis Brandon Edwards, also a historian and conservationist, is demolishing the interior of the bus (a RV with a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom in his past life in the 1970s) so that he can turn it into a museum for large immigrants.
The great immigration was a period around 1910-70s when millions of African Americans retreated from the southern, western, western and northeastern areas. The museum will highlight the experiences and hardships they experienced while immigrating to the North, including racism, Jim Crow’s quarantine law and violence. Its plans will include a virtual reality exhibition.
“Depending on how quickly I can raise funds to get the bus running again, I hope to get on this road this time next year and plan to hit all the major great immigration destination cities,” Edwards told Edwards Tell. Artnews.
The bus was designed by Raymond Loewy, who also designed many cars Black Motorist Green Booka 1930s African-American road traveler guide detailing safe stops. It was originally operated in the Great Lakes region of the United States, stopping in cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Philadelphia, “all the main destinations for Black Southerners during the Great Immigration,” said.
The bus is currently parked outside the Grey Lion Terminal in Cleveland, Chester Avenue. The building was designed in 1948 by architect William Strudwick Arrasmith, and the building is in a modern style. Later this year, the terminal will permanently close its doors due to factors such as increasing competition from airlines and ride-sharing services. It plans to turn from a Cleveland-based art education nonprofit theater square into a performance venue.
Edwards’ museum project is part of his PhD study in history conservation at Columbia University, in collaboration with Playhouse Square. His grandmother, Ruby Mae Rollins, was inspired by the Greyhound Bus from Fredericksburg, Virginia to New York, where her two daughters, Cindy and Linda (the mother of Edwards).
“I thought of the stories my grandmother shared with me and how to liberate and challenge while traveling in the Jim Crow era.” Artnews. “It made me realize that cars, trains and buses are spaces that need to be preserved to expand the area of preservation and to expand the archives of spaces that represent black experiences.”
He continued: “I realized that while some museums explain the huge migration, the museum is entirely committed to great migration. The great immigration brought African Americans from the South to the North, West and Midwest, which not only affected industrialism and urbanism, but also art, food, food, food, food, food, music, music, culture, culture, literature and television.
Edwards told Art newspaper In the mid-20th century, black greyhound passengers were often harassed and attacked. He said they tend to bring their own food to the journey because there is no guarantee that the roadside restaurant will let them in. “They don’t know where to use it safely,” he said. “To me, the Greyhound bus stop is like Ellis Island.”
Edwards said in 2022 that he was forced by a “crazy idea”: Have any buses used during the big immigration survived? After some search, he found one in Pennsylvania for $12,000, but managed to lower the price to $5,500. But it cost him $7,000 to transport the bus to a flatbed truck in Cleveland. Several components survived, and one of the former owners turned it into an RV, including the backstage that Jim Crow laws forced black passengers to use.
Playhouse Square bought Greyhound Pier for $3 million before Edwards asked nonprofits if they could park their buses outside. Craig Hassall, president and CEO of Playhouse Square, told Sepia That “synchronicity is obvious.”
He added that the converted terminal exhibition can also explore Ohio’s black history.
“This bus is an alternative tool for how the ordinary cultural, social and physical landscapes of black people are exploring,” Edwards told the Cultural Landscape Foundation. “I want to know what it might be like to see what my grandmother’s experience might feel, take the isolated bus to a strange city in the north. Is it loud? Is it warm? Is it comfortable? Is it scary? Is it crafted in a moment of traveling through the United States in between,’ in the American landscape, it’s important to me. I also want to challenge and change our practices and practices and implement the methods of research and measurement to achieve and measure.”
