News Room

The Museum of Bus Transportation which displays 12 vintage buses on the lower level concourse of the AACA Museum just off Route 39 in Hershey, PA, will be honoring the Negro League Baseball Teams during Black History Month in February with a special display of memorabilia.

Decades before Jackie Robinson crossed the infamous color barrier in Major League Baseball, black baseball players were making names for themselves on the diamond in another way. African Americans had been playing the game of baseball since the mid to late 1800’s, forming teams after the Civil War days and traveling on their own around the country to play anybody that would challenge them.

It was not until 1920 and a meeting was held between owners of these independent teams that the Negro National League was formed. The first organized Negro league consisted of teams from the Midwest. With the organization of the league came more upstart leagues along the east cost, and in the south. The game of baseball was quickly spreading to communities in more urban and rural regions.  Visit the Museum during the month of February and see the types of vehicles used to transport the teams from one town to another and enjoy some baseball history along the way. Sometimes they rode all night on the bus to get to the next town for another game.  When stopping in places that were segregated—they often bought their food at the back door of the restaurant and ate on the bus.

This special display during February will include posters about the Negro Leagues along with memorabilia of the individual teams and similar vintage buses that the teams rode in during that time.   Mr. Willie Fordham, formerly of the Harrisburg Giants of the Negro Leagues Baseball Team, will be on hand at the museum with a table of his memorabilia Mondays – Fridays during February.  He will also sell some shirts and books that tell the story of the Negro League Baseball teams with a portion of the proceeds being donated back to the Museum of Bus Transportation.  This is a fantastic opportunity for the public to meet one of the actual players who was part of history.

The Antique Auto Museum at Hershey, a member of the Smithsonian Institute Affiliations Program, displays beautifully restored automobiles, buses and motorcycles in unique life-like scenes representing the 1900’s – 1970’s in a cross-country journey from New York to San Francisco.   This Museum, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization, is one of the nation’s newest and largest automotive museums.  Special exhibits change several times a year and focus on a variety of eras and types of vehicles.  The Museum is located just off Route 39, one mile west of Hersheypark Drive in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Regular admission $10, seniors age 61 and older $9, juniors age 4-12 $7, children age 3 and under are FREE.  The Museum is open daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.   For further information, please call 717-566-7100 or visit www.aacamuseum.org.