Freedom Bus to teach Hoosiers about local civil rights movement

The Freedom Bus project began in 2005 when MITS donated a retired bus to the MLK Dream Team for the mobile museum to teach about the civil rights movement. Students will create designs for the exhibit through Ball State immersive learning courses, highlighting civil rights leaders and the local heroes in
The Freedom Bus project began in 2005 when MITS donated a retired bus to the MLK Dream Team for the mobile museum to teach about the civil rights movement. Students will create designs for the exhibit through Ball State immersive learning courses, highlighting civil rights leaders and the local heroes in
The Freedom Bus project began in 2005 when MITS donated a retired bus to the MLK Dream Team for the mobile museum to teach about the civil rights movement. Students will create designs for the exhibit through Ball State immersive learning courses, highlighting civil rights leaders and the local heroes in Muncie. PHOTO PROVIDED BY BETH MESSNER
The Freedom Bus

The Freedom Bus will teach area children about local heroes that helped Muncie contribute to the civil rights movement.  

Freedom Bus timetable:

Fall 2014: Ball State students will research and design exhibit prototypes.

Spring 2015: The group will test exhibits and seek grants to pay for professional creation and installations.

Fall 2015: Students will create and install exhibits.

January and February 2016: The bus will debut for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and at Muncie’s Black History Month kickoff event.

Sponsors:

  • Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Team (Susan Fisher, chairperson)
  • Muncie Human Rights Commission (Yvonne Thompson, executive director)
  • City of Muncie (Dennis Tyler, mayor)
  • Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Ball State University (Larry Gerstein, director)

Source: MLK Dream Team

Almost 60 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus, a group of students are using that same tool, a decommissioned public bus, to tell the story of Muncie’s contributions to end racial inequality.

The Freedom Bus, created from a donated MITS bus, will bring together students from several majors, including theatre, telecommunications, architecture and education, to create exhibits for a mobile museum.

Beth Messner, an associate professor working to recruit students, said the goal is to teach central Indiana residents about the local heroes who shaped the movement for racial equality in Indiana.

Most people, she said, believe the fight only happened in the south where Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks fought for equality.

“It is kind of [a misconception] to think that simply because we live in a place that is north of [the] Mason-Dixon [line] there wasn’t segregation,” she said.

She said the Freedom Bus will teach children in area schools about central Indiana’s heroes like Ray Armstrong, the first black man elected to public office in Muncie in 1951, and Robert Foster, who in 1956 became the first black principal in of a desegregated school in Muncie.

“[Children should] know there were people that were like King and Parks who lived in their own community, whose stories are equally important and whose work made possible the lives they currently live,” she said.

The project began in 2005 when MITS donated a retired bus to the MLK Dream Team. The team worked with Minnetrista to garner a $10,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Muncie.

The project is supported by other donations from local residents, churches and school children, according to the project’s website.

Ball State students who work on the project will spend a semester creating designs and exhibits that will eventually be placed on the bus.

Messner said these types of projects, ones that provide 15 credits, are the largest in terms of scope for immersive learning projects at Ball State.

The hardest part, she said, is finding 15 credits worth of classes for students coming from many different areas of study and levels of completion toward their degree. She said the worst part of her job is finding a perfect candidate, only to learn there is no way to fit the project into their degree.

Matt Bailey, project manager for the university’s Building Better Communities Fellows Programs, works with Ball State professors and community members to create immersive learning projects. He said projects that are 15 credit hours are rare because they magnify the hurdles faced by creating small projects.

However, the scope of what can be accomplished by a semester-long class is often worth the struggle, he said.

Another hurdle faced by the Freedom Bus project is getting students from many different backgrounds to work together.

“That is the magic of it, though, because everyone brings a special knowledge and a special skill set,” Messner said. “So it is about everyone stepping forward when it is their time to shine and following along when they need to. It’s magic when it works.”

What is most important to her, she said, is teaching students to learn for themselves, something that immersive learning does best.

“[Immersive learning] is not just about learning real world experience — that is a part of it — but learning how to do the kind of self-reflection that is a part of that process,” she said.

She jokingly said her idea behind immersive learning may even be considered heresy by fellow professors — allowing students to teach themselves.

“Sometimes, the things that they discover are even more powerful when they learn them on their own,” she said. “I think that also sets a person up to be a self-directed learner in the future and that is the ticket to life success, right there.”

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