A while back, I heard on NPR, that some niwit wanted to find the Birmingham, AL city bus that the fampous black lady was refused a seat on. The idea was that the bus would be made into a museum of the Civil Rights Era. Quite apart from the difficulty of identifying an old bus, what exactly is the point?
It’s in the collection at the Henry Ford Museum..
And the “famous black lady” was Rosa Parks.
Wow. Just…wow.
A remarkable museum, which includes two seats that presidents of the US were sitting on when assassinated (one was in a theatre in Washington DC, and the other still is in a limousine that was driven in Dallas TX).
‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner’s, 1905, page 284"
This page provides information on the provenance of the vehicle in question. Although the identity can’t be established with 100% certainty, strong circumstantial evidence includes the fact that the Montgomery bus station manager noted the coach number (#2857) and driver’s name (Blake) in a scrapbook of company operations which was being kept at the time of Parks’s arrest.
Seems odd to me that such an item would be in the Henry Ford museum, of all places.
One cannot help but wonder if Henry Ford had the same issues with People of Color as he did with Jews.
I don’t think he gets much say on what goes into it any more, being dead and all. 
Not at all. The Henry Ford Museum, and the next-door Greenfield Village, collect all sorts of unique items connected with US history. The Henry Ford Museum specialises in vehicles (including a lot of railway rolling-stock) and some pieces of machinery, while the Greenfield Village specialises in buildings, which have been moved there from their original locations (e.g., the Wright Brothers’ home, moved there from Dayton, or Edison’s laboratory, moved there from New Jersey). I’ve been there a few times: I don’t remember seeing Rosa Parks’ bus, but it does not surprise me that it’s there. They certainly do not limit themselves to Ford vehicles (though there are plenty of those, of course). If you are ever in Detroit, it’s worth spending a day or so there.
I think his problems were just with Jews, oddly enough. (And the people who presently run the museum don’t seem to have the same anti-semitism).
Good point, well taken.
Before everyone jumps all over ralph, let me just say I took his OP to mean that he didn’t see the point in putting the bus in a museum. We go to museums to see things like dinosaur footprints and fossils, things that we can’t see every day. Does a bus, no matter how famous, add to the historical understanding of the topic?
Now, I happen to disagree with it, at least in this case. The bus isn’t like the ones we see all the time. Maybe it has signs saying “whites only section,” which is certainly of historical interest. But someone mentioned the chairs that two presidents were assassinated in. I mean, it is interesting in its own way, but a chair? The guns used in the assassinations would be more historically interesting, at least to me.
The chair that Lincoln was sitting in (a rocking chair, by the way) has his blood on it still.
It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but we used to have a family membership when the kids were little. The “theme” of the museum, IIRC, is innovation and technology, with specific reference to American life. There’re are a lot of cars (not just Fords, as Giles notes), as well as an actual Holiday Inn hotel room from one of the first hotels (apparently Holiday Inn semi-revolutionized family travel in the 20’s or 30’s). There are some massive locomotives and a whole bunch of planes from all eras.
There’s also an exhibit of household appliances throughout American history, as well as furniture and decor; clocks and timepieces; glass; silver and table ware; and firearms.
They regularly bring in traveling themed exhibits - I think the last time I was there, it was all about the James Bond mythos. There’s an interactive assembly line for kids, all educational of course.
In general, they do a nice job of putting things in context and illustrating how the innovations and changes in “mundane technology” effected the lives of regular people.
A neat recent addition is Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxian House.
I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff I’m omitting, working from memory as I am. I do remember it’s a full day to go through everything they have. Greenfield Village, which is part of “The Henry Ford”, lies just outside the museum. It also is a full day’s visit.