GDOT Annual Report 2017

G R E E N S B O R O T R A N S I T A U T H O R I T Y

GTA Honors Black Leaders and Trailblazers with Heritage Ride

In celebration of Black History Month 2017, the Greensboro Transit Authority (GTA) outfitted a bus to honor historic and present-day trailblazing African-Americans.

he developed to rescue workers trapped in a tunnel beneath Lake Erie in 1916. The exhibit also displayed the “Negro Traveler’s Green- Book,” a guide published from 1936 to 1966 that helped black travelers find safe lodging and other services, and the letter the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote while imprisoned in the Birmingham Jail for participating in segregation protests.

The bus was transformed into the Heritage Ride, a

rolling exhibit featuring images and information about important people and events in black history both locally and nationally. The Heritage Ride ran along a regular bus route, and was also available to visit schools, churches and other community groups. It traveled to 14 locations and was seen by more than 400 visitors. The Heritage Ride displays featured well-known individuals, such as President Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, whose actions in Montgomery, Alabama, spurred the integration of transit systems, and the Greensboro Four, who touched off the national lunch counter sit-ins. The exhibit also spotlighted lesser-known individuals and events, and people of all races whose efforts benefited society. It included information about people like Gerald Lawson, an early African-American computer engineer who invented the video game cartridge; Levi Coffin, a Quaker and leader of the Underground Railroad; the first African-American NASCAR driver, Wendell Scott; Julius Rosenwald, a part-owner of Sears Roebuck who donated millions in support of African- American children’s education in the rural South; and Garrett Morgan, an inventor who used a safety hood

The Heritage Ride also recognized Edward Greenlee and Liz McKinnon, the first African-American male and female bus operators in Greensboro. McKinnon even drove the bus to some of the special events during February. This program was made possible with support from the Greensboro Public Library.

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