This project is an expansion of our multi-pronged GRTC community-based public humanities project—a series of three exhibitions created over the last eight years. While each phase of the project has had a different focus, they have all had a common goal: to address why accessible public transportation is so important to a democratic society.
This longstanding relationship with the GRTC began with Laura Browder’s 2013 oral-history-based public art exhibition Driving Richmond, commissioned by Vaughn Garland for the RVA Street Arts Festival, and continued with RIDE, the transit exhibition her and Alexandra’ Byrum’s students created for GRTC headquarters in 2015, in an exhibition co-curated by bus operator Bruce Korusek. The most recent exhibition, Through It All: Families Moving Richmond, was created at the request of GRTC.
Part One —
This class was centered around creating an exhibition for Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) headquarters that addresses why accessible public transportation is so important to a democratic society—spotlighting the impact of COVID and BLM on the GRTC. During this past summer’s protests a GRTC bus was torched, and a GRTC driver recently died of COVID. As part of this exhibition, we focused on GRTC families, since so many employees have spouses, children, siblings who also work at the GRTC.
Part Two —
In conjunction with the GRTC Transit Museum exhibition, university dancers created a twelve-minute dance piece also entitled Through It All as a part of MOVE!, The University Dancers 37th Annual Concert on February 25-27, 2022. The piece was dedicated to the GRTC trailblazers of public transportation in Richmond, VA. Students delved into UR’s institutional history and its connection to enslavement as an entry point into their research of public transportation in Richmond, VA.
Project Details
“
He went home and told my mother and my mother heard on the radio that day, that the white drivers were getting fearful for driving into some of the Black neighborhoods. And so, GRTC put an advertisement out.
David Williams
01
History Harvest
Under our guidance, our students conducted two History Harvests and recorded interviews with bus drivers, mechanics and other Greater Richmond Transit Co. employees about their experiences in GRTC and being on the front lines of public transit during dual epidemics. Our goal was to highlight not just the stories of bus drivers, but also to depict the complex web of relationships between the drivers and their passengers—who in Richmond are predominantly African American.
In the Fall semester, students conducted two History Harvests.
02
Installation
The exhibition curatorial team was lead by Alexandra Byrum and featured photography by Tania del Carmen. The goal of Through It All: Families Moving Richmond was to shine a light on GRTC employees and relatives who keep GRTC operational and lead Richmond through unprecedented times.
The exhibition is currently on display at GRTC headquarters in Richmond and features portraits taken during the History Harvests and stories of GRTC families that reflect resilience, strength, work ethic, and much more.
03
Digital Exhibition
The digital exhibition built on the work from the physical exhibition using themes present in the interviews to drive a deeper conversation about what being a part of GRTC in the Richmond community means. Themes that the students explored included the pandemic, race, technology, and more.
View the digital exhibition. ↣
A short comic from the digital exhibition that shows the progression of the GRTC to become more racially diverse.
Click the video above to watch the performance.
04
Dance Performance
In the fall semester, another team of students served as dramaturges, working in concert with Alicia Díaz, Patricia Herrera, and University Dancers. Together they developed a dance piece based on archival materials and oral histories of some of the GRTC drivers and families that would be presented in spring 2022.
The collaborative creative process for the development of Through It All began with a tour of the Westhampton Burying Ground and the Eco-Corridor. Students delved into UR’s institutional history and its connection to enslavement as an entry point into their research of public transportation in Richmond, VA. Walking through the eco-corridor was an opportunity to learn about the human ecology of the land and its connection to systems of extraction, exploitation, and racial violence. The corridor’s connection to waterways also served as an important reference to thinking about transportation across time in myriad ways.
From this early research, the dancers created movement responses with accompanying phrases like “excavating history,” “tracing,” “ancestral scoop,” “paving the way,” and “attention!” The dance solos they generated at that time informed the rest of their work as they engaged with oral histories of GRTC bus operators who defied the limitations of racial segregation and gender discrimination.
05
Educational Resources
In the Spring, our students also formed groups to focus on aspects of this story and produced educational resources for artists—Kevin LaMarr Jones, Vaughn Garland, and Lindsay Young—who were commissioned to create original pieces in response to the students’ work. A conversation followed with the artists, students, family of the first Black bus operators and community members.
This project elevated the intergenerational memory and affirmed the strength and resiliency of people who have made the impossible possible. The stories of the first Black bus operators in Richmond are important to capture and share widely, especially during a period when state legislatures around the country are attempting to weaken voting rights, and when white nationalist terms (like the “great replacement”) have entered mainstream discourse.
Topics —
Students presented their work in a variety of media–from PowerPoint slides to dance and musical performances. There were four groups covering the following topics:
Controlling and Freeing the Black Body
Through the Lens: A Close Reading of a Virginia Transit Company Photograph
Beyond the Curb: Acts of Service
Momentum
and Video Mapping Project
Documentation of the presentations.
Controlling and Freeing the Black Body
Shira Greer ’22, Alec Barnieh ’25, Shefali Kamilla ’25, and Carmen Ovalle ’25
This group explored the ways that the GRTC offered Black men a way out of the manual labor associated with Jim Crow and chattel slavery, but constrained these men from physical expression of Black manhood important in the 1960s (facial hair, Afros).
Through the Lens: A Close Reading of a Virginia Transit Company Photograph
Alexandra Crespo ’25, Lain Grillo ’25, Claire King ’22, Regenia Miller ’22, and Beza Mulatu ’25
This group offered a deep dive on one of the few photographs available with the first black bus operators.
Beyond the Curb: Acts of Service
Vanessa Romero ’25, Annie Hankin ’25, Ava Tankersley ’25, and Zacharie Georges ’25
This group focused on how GRTC operators created community “beyond the curb,” from taking Black church groups to the beach on chartered buses back in the 1960s, to the way that retired operators continue driving favorite passengers to their medical appointments.
Momentum
and Video Mapping Project
Movement
Lay’La Harmon ’25, Rosie Martinez ’25, Anya Muller ’25, Julia Vidlak ’22
Visual Art
Melanie Sanchez ’25
Archival Research
Olive Gallmeyer ’22
Technology/Sound Editing
Craig Caudill ’25
This group worked on an embodied educational resource that parallels the struggles faced by the first black bus drivers with current issues faced by the GRTC. Their plan was to create a multi-media live performance that combined dance, sound, and visual art to move forward the conversation regarding race and racism in the context of the past and present of the GRTC.