Its not everyday that our community gets to time travel back to a difficult time (not so long ago) when there were separate water fountains for white and black residents. When black students had to travel for miles passing many white schools to get to their separate black school. A time when people of color were obligated to walk in the street when a white person walked down the sidewalk.
But that's just one part of the story. Because Hendersonville's black community was segregated, the community created its own cultural legacy, its own business community and its own schools. The crown jewel of this was the 9th Avenue School. Students who came through the black schools told me that their schooling was special because it made a difference to have teachers who looked like them, dedicated to telling their history and fostering a sense of pride and dignity even when none of this was available once they stepped outside of the boundaries of Peacock Town, West End, Green Meadows, Brickton, East Flat Rock or Brooklyn.
The challenges and triumphs in growing up in black Hendersonville will blossom in Color Beyond the Lines this June 21st at 7:00 PM as our world premiere is released at the Thomas Auditorium and Blue Ridge Community College. The event will include music, the screening of the film and a panel discussion that will include black leaders discussing local history, what was lost and the luminaries who graduated from the local black schools who discovered that their education was on par if not more advanced to what was offered in the white schools.
We expect tickets to be sold out, so we recommend you picking them up NOW while they're still available. Individual tickets are $20, or you have the option of becoming a sponsor and getting a block of tickets at a discount. Order them online HERE or
https://saveculture.org/shop/c...
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