East End Asheville Photographs Circa 1968

East End Asheville Photographs Circa 1968
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East End Asheville Photographs Circa 1968
Andrea Clark, circa 1968
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information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the copyright holder.
© 2009 Buncombe County Public Libraries
Photographs © 2009 Andrea Clark
ISBN 978-1-60743-684-3
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition
Twilight of a Neighborhood, Asheville's East End, Circa
1968, opened February 28, 2009, Holly Library, AshevilleBuncombe Technical Community College.
Buncombe County Public Libraries
Administrative Offices
67 Haywood Street, Asheville, NC 28801
828.250.4700, www.buncombecounty.org
FRONT COVER IMAGE
East End Students, Valley Street
PREVIOUS PAGE IMAGE
Asheville City Hall viewed from "Dirt Eagle" Street
BACK COVER IMAGE
Public Restroom, Pack Square
Dedicated to the Clark Family
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks go to the following for making this
project possible:
Buncombe County Public Libraries Trust Fund
Dr. Harlan Gradin
North Carolina Humanities Council
Ed Sheary
Twilight of a Neighborhood
Partners and Project Committee:
Rob Amberg
Pat Griffin
Sarah Judson
Karen Loughmiller
Deborah Miles
Betsy Murray
Henry Robinson
Stephens-Lee Alumni Association
The Center for Diversity Education
PRINTING
Blue Ridge Printing
Asheville, NC
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Susan Rhew Design, Inc.
Asheville, NC
Eagle Street Looking Toward Biltmore Avenue
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V - l c t i K is all about community. Her search for community has taken her many
places — Cambridge, Massachusetts, New Orleans, and the Caribbean — before she found her
home and roots in Asheville. Her ongoing work as an activist and caregiver speaks clearly to her
need for participation. Andrea's photographs of Asheville's East End Neighborhood have stimulated the collective memory of a long displaced neighborhood, and have sparked discussion on
the very nature of progress and community development.
Andrea Clark is also about art. Growing up in Cambridge she was surrounded by artists,
musicians and crafts people, who gave her two gifts: the knowledge that art should be lived, as
well as, practiced; and close proximity to creative and diverse people that didn't fit any mold. It
has not been an easy or seamless journey, but art has been her lifelong endeavor.
The following are excerpts from two interviews I conducted with Andrea in 2008.
— Rob Amberg, January 2009
I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March of 1945. My mother said there was a
snowstorm. I was almost eleven pounds and mother said that I looked like I was three or four
months old. She said people came from all over the hospital to look at this baby, and I came
out smiling and grinning.
My father was from Asheville, NC and was a chauffeur for wealthy people. He
chauffeured for General Logan, who Logan Airport is named after in Boston. Wealthy
people had summer homes and the Logan estate was in Cohasset, which is near Cape
Cod, near Brockton, where my mother was from. So, as my mother said, my father used
to bundle us up and put us down on Cape Cod, rent a house, and leave us there for the
summer. There are pictures of us going fishing, swimming, and having fun. Dad was born
in 1895 and lived to be ninety-six years old. I took care of him until he died.
We lived in Cambridge on Washington Street. Later, we bought a house on Worcester
Street. It was a big college town, Irish, Italians, and Blacks. On my street most people owned
their homes. I lived in Central Square and there was a convent, St. Mary's, up at the top of
my street. That was exciting because we used to crawl on the wall, and jump over, and try
to peek at the nuns. They would chase us out. The things we did as kids back then.
5
My family were Congregationalists. My mother lived in Brockton behind the church
and her father was the organist who also had a jazz band and traveled around New
England. My mother was very liberal about joining a church. A family friend, Ethel Ramos
Harris, a member of my grandfather's church, recalled returning as an adult to the old
church and hearing him play those jazz chords in the hymns. My mother loved music, loved
opera, and loved Negro spirituals. There was lots of singing. My mother told me she wanted
to be an opera singer. Christmas was always in Cambridge at our house and we sang carols
and hymns.
My siblings and I were influenced by a lot of artists. Mr. Revaleon, our neighbor from
across the street, was a jeweler and taught jewelry making. And the woman on the corner,
Delia Taylor, was a potter and her husband was a musician. Mrs. Taylor attended West
Virginia State College with my aunt, Elizabeth, so we took pottery courses from her. Aunt
Elizabeth took us to Symphony Hall in Boston often. My mother's friend Nettie Fishstein was
a sculptor. She played second violin with the Brookline Symphony and traveled to Italy to
study bronze wax sculpture. While there, she was the secretary for Willie Wyler, director of
the movie "Ben Hur". She told me great stories of Charlton Heston. She also knew Leonard
Bernstein who was a native of Brookline, MA. My brother had a "doo-wop" singing group
in high school and had a singing contract to perform in local nightclubs. We all loved music
and art.
I wanted to be a doctor when I got out of high school, but I didn't make the cut so I
went to nursing school for a while. After nursing school I went to photography school. I got
a scholarship by working in the darkroom and that was when I fell in love with the darkroom. I did metal sculpture with an acetylene torch. To me, artists were the tops. Doctors
were there, but artists were above them. What you saw from civilization to civilization were
the sculptures and the paintings. That's what was left — the Sphinx, and Stonehenge, and
the cave paintings. It's the art that outlasts everything.
I was out of nursing school and photography didn't appear to be a viable career. My
mother and Aunt Elizabeth always tried to make me conform and go back to complete my
studies. Mother was constantly after me to conform. And I never fit. From a child I never fit.
So I really wanted to get away from my mother, get away from her dominance and strength
and traditional ways.
My father and mother divorced when I was eight years old. He moved back to the South
in the sixties. He had a friendship with Aunt Hattie and stayed with her on Valley Street. He
took care of her and was her handyman and she willed him her property. She had those two
6
little houses, which she rented. I can remember the three of us down there fixing the plumbing problem. It was a clay pipe and there's my father patching it and me standing there
holding the shovel.
My father was like a dream because he was so much older. Dad was thirty years older
than my mother. He was born in 1895. To me he was always this little safe place where I
could be taken care of. And he was fun to be around, like a grandpa actually. I thought by
moving to Asheville, he was going to rescue me from my mother's pressures to conform.
But I knew little about his family and where he came from. He lived with his mother,
Outside Feldman's Grocery, 91 Eagle Street
LEFT TO RIGHT Monk Ware, Arthur Lee
Edgerton, John Henry "Bilbous" Clark,
Larry Wilson, Vernon "Dooney" Smith,
Cleveland "Buckaroo" Rice
Ida Ruth Clark, who was a live-in housekeeper for Grandmother Doyle. Mrs. Doyle's granddaughter was Jane Raoul Bingham, whose father built The Manor and was president of the
Biltmore Forest Company.
My father always worked for wealthy people. He always was
impeccably dressed and clean-shaven and drove fancy cars. Everybody
loved him. "Diamond Jim" I used to call him in his later years.
I took the Pullman porter to Asheville. There was a sleeping car and
that was a wonderful experience. It was my first trip out of New
England. My mother's father was born in Rhode Island and he was
proud to be a northerner. When my aunt Midge came back from her college days at West Virginia State saying "Y'all," my mother said he
slapped her across the room. He hated the South.
There was a lot of adverse information about the South and everyone was a little worried for my welfare. I didn't see any of this when I
came to Asheville. I witnessed no riots and no civil rights protests.
I didn't know what to expect and I was nervous when I went up on
the Square the first time. I was shocked when this old white man in overalls looked over at me, spit out tobacco and said, "Nice day, ain't it?" I
thought, "Is he talking to me?" I was amazed. I said, "Oh, it's great. The air
is beautiful." And we started talking. I didn't think this white man would
be saying hello, but the whole town was like that. It appeared to be very
friendly. Everybody spoke. I was from a big city where people didn't speak
to people if you didn't know them. Here, they just said, "Hey."
It was like a little hamlet. Valley Street was one of the poorer sections
of town with a lot of tenements. It was known in the community for its
liquor houses. Folks were sweet and friendly. When you walked up
Beaucatcher Mountain with the beautiful view of the city lights, you were standing in a
black neighborhood. It was like a movie set. I went around taking pictures of everybody
and everything. I went anywhere I could. It was just me, my personality, and my camera.
I thought a lot about the book "Family of Man" which documented the photography
exhibition curated by Edward Steichen. I wanted to be a photographer like Walker Evans
and Dorothea Lange, just documenting how people live. So I carried my camera all the time,
just going out and taking pictures, walking around the neighborhood.
I learned about my father's family. I found a sanctuary here and kept coming back.
I felt these where my roots.
I knew that something worthwhile would happen with these photographs one day.
I didn't realize how important this Asheville collection was going to become to me and
the community. I'm very grateful that the photographs have been saved for all to see.
This work documenting a part of the Black community and its history will be preserved
and for that I am very happy. Remembering our history is so important. That's how we
honor people. That's how we stay connected.
View of East End
8
Elijah Morgan
'Mother Hattie" M. Sinclair, 119 Valley Street
An Historical Perspective on East End
— Henry Robinson, Journalist and Community Historian
More than 145 years ago, a hilly patch of wooded land, just east of Asheville's
hub, provided space t o a recently freed people in search of a home place. It was
1863 and President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation freeing black
people from the evil clutches of slavery.
Matt Baxter, a recently freed slave, began building lodging for black families
in the East End w i t h tools given him by his former slave owner.
View of Beaucatcher Mountain From Valley Street
LOCATION AND BOUNDARIES
East End is located just east of the Buncombe County
father's slaves. The new church met in a log cabin built on
Courthouse and Asheville's City Hall. It is bordered on the
Chinquapin Ridge (now Pine Street). Asheville's third black con-
north by College Street; east by Beaucatcher Mountain; south,
gregation was organized in 1868, when black communicants of
McCormick Field; and west, Biltmore Avenue. Every phase of
Central Methodist Church withdrew to establish Hopkins Chapel
life for black people in Asheville evolved out of East End.
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; members first met in a
brush arbor near Beaucatcher Mountain on College Street.
THE CRADLE OF EAST END
Other churches in East End include Mount Zion Missionary
Many will say that this is hallowed ground. It was also a
Baptist Church; St. James African Methodist Church; Tried Stone
proving ground, where newly freed African Americans came
Missionary Baptist Church; Calvary United Presbyterian Church;
together to build an enduring community that would provide
Berry Temple United Methodist Church; and Cappadocia
social, commercial, religious, and educational opportunities denied
Holiness Church.
them in a segregated white society.
Moving quickly to establish schooling for black children, St.
A trio of churches led the way, beginning in 1865 with St.
Matthais Episcopal Church opened a parochial school in 1868. In
Matthais Episcopal Church. First known as Freedman's Chapel,
the 1870s a white couple, Mr. and Mrs. L.M. Pease of New York
this was Asheville's first black church. In 1867, a chapel was con-
City, used their own money to launch a school for black children
structed at the corner of Valley and Sycamore Streets. First
on College Street. This became the Allen School.
Nazareth Church, established in 1867, grew out of Sunday
In 1887, the Asheville City School Board, including black
School classes conducted by Mary Patton for the children of her
businessman Isaac Dickson, opened the city's first public schools
ii
— one for black children, one for white children. An abandoned
district began to take shape early in the new century. Businesses
building on Beaumont Street in East End was the first school for
included a Colored Hospital and a variety of eating houses, shoe
black children; later that year, Mountain Street School opened.
shine parlors, pressing clubs, barber shops, beauty parlors, and
In 1891, Catholic Hill School was erected on Catholic Hill, just off
funeral parlors. Several East End residents had establishments
Valley Street in East End.
By 1890 the community supported two newspapers, The
on Pack Square, Asheville's commercial heart. Among them was
Andrea Clark's grandfather, James Vester Miller, whose Miller
Mountain Gleaner and The Enterprise. In 1892, George Vanderbilt
Construction Co. built numerous civic buildings and churches in
funded construction of the Young Mens Institute for black
Asheville, most of which still stand. The community prospered.
workers involved in constructing the Biltmore House. The YMI
But tragedy struck on November 16, 1917, when seven
provided sleeping quarters for the workers, a gym, and
children died in a fire at Catholic Hill School. Students attended
bathing facilities. Sunday afternoon family concerts were held
classes in nearby buildings until March 23, 1923, when the
in the auditorium.
three-story, 19-room Stephens-Lee High School was opened.
The largest high school for black students in Western North
EAST END, MECCA OF BLACK CULTURE
During the 20th century, East End became a thriving bastion
of progressive black culture within Asheville's segregated society.
Carolina, the school was the pride of the community. Its highly
trained and deeply caring faculty would educate and inspire
generations of students.
Home to hundreds of black families, and boasting with a growing
The Eagle Street/Market Street district thrived during the
population of skilled workers, businessmen, and professionals,
1920s. Construction of the two-story Wilson Building on Eagle
the community was poised for a new growth and achievement.
Street offered stylish new office space for black physicians,
One of the few areas in Asheville that provided space for
dentists, and insurance agents; a spacious barber shop and a
black-owned businesses to grow. East End's Eagle Street business
pool hall occupied the street level. In 1924, a brand-new
Mountain Street Elementary School was opened. In the same
year, Allen School became Allen High School, a private school
for girls. It was known throughout the South for the out-
LEFT TO RIGHT Randolph Briggs, Unidentified Man, Doc Briggs, Valley Street
standing education it provided. In 1926, the "Colored Library"
opened in the YMI.
East End's underground economy began to flourish during
this era. It included the sale and distribution of liquor, and the
numbers racket, shooting dice, and in a few places, prostitution.
The Great Depression hit East End hard; the community
became even more self-reliant. The neighborhood's semi-rural
nature, still evident in Andrea Clark's photographs, supported
traditions of gardening, preserving, and keeping chickens.
Many families shared food, shelter, and clothing with those in
need, no matter how little they had themselves. People found
ways to cope. "Wash women" operated self-styled laundry services for whites who could afford it. Some grocery stores, beauty
parlors, and barber shops were located in the living rooms of
homes. Some people took in boarders. Coal and kindling yards
12
Stephens-Lee High School,
"The Castle on the Hill"
continued to operate, because most homes in the East End used
welcomed by the stiff salute of racial segregation in Asheville.
fireplaces or coal-burning heaters. "Rent parties" helped neigh-
Jobs were few and far between. Many veterans sought to better
bors pay the bills as party-goers socialized. These trends continued
themselves by enrolling at the Southeastern Business College,
into the 1940s and 50s; taxicab services also flourished at this time.
located above the broom factory on Valley Street. In the early
John Darity's Cab Co., was the largest, with a fleet of eight cabs.
1950s, lack of employment for black males led some young men
Nightclubs were also an important feature of the Eagle
to join the army. After serving in Korea, many went North in
Street/South Market Street area throughout the 1930s, 40s, and
search of equality and better jobs. Others who left to obtain a
50s. Old timers remember the "Big Ten" rhythm and blues con-
college education also chose not to return to Asheville.
certs that were held at the Tobacco Warehouse on Valley Street.
The Civil Rights movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King,
People from miles around came to see performers like Louis
conducted protest marches across the South until Congress
Armstrong, James Brown, Duke Ellington, Ruth Brown, Fats
passed a bill desegregating all public accommodations. East End
Waller, and many other big-time recording stars.
residents, young and old, took part in the struggle. By the late
1960s, schools were nominally integrated, and efforts were
EAST END IN DECLINE
underway to open local job and housing markets more effectively
During World War II, many East End residents experienced
to blacks. But desegregation in Asheville proved devastating to
life outside the South for the first time. But Black soldiers
black businesses. Black people began to purchase goods from
returning home from the war in Europe and the Pacific were
white owned businesses, and blacks began to find decent employ-
ment outside the community. Eagle Street took on the image of
Southside area of Asheville. Sadly, huge sections of the East End
a ghost town as those once-thriving businesses began closing.
were demolished.
By the late 1950s, East End was becoming a community in
In the spring of 1979, large earth-moving machines invaded
decline. There were pockets of standard homes scattered about
East EndA/alley Street to begin dismantling a once-proud and
East End, as in most black communities of that era; others were
resourceful community. Valley Street, East End's main artery,
basically sound and needed only renovation and repair. But some
became a passage affording North Asheville's largely white
residents faced leaking roofs, outdoor toilet facilities, rotting
population easy access to southern areas of the city. Residents
floors, broken sewerage lines, and other such serious problems.
were displaced and businesses closed; what was left of East End
Most of the rundown properties were owned by the wealthy who
was divided by five lanes of asphalt.
resided in North Asheville. Shockingly, East End was in full view of
Asheville City Hall and the Buncombe County Courthouse.
After years of failing to enforce city housing codes and
ignoring storm drainage and sewerage problems in East End, city
No historic markers commemorate East End's leaders, institutions, and achievements. As for Valley Street, even the name is
gone. The roadway is now called South Charlotte Street, after a
daughter of slave owner Thomas W. Patton.
officials applied for federal funds for an urban renewal project in
Andrea Clark's East End photographs don't lie. They illu-
East End. The East EndA/alley Street Residents Association was
minate beautifully the real nature and value of community.
created, supposedly to work closely with project engineers to
They are precious testament to what was lost in East End, and
prevent a mass clearance like the one a few years earlier in the
a powerful reminder to us all to cherish and strengthen our
neighborhood communities.
East End Community
14
1
East End Tenement
15
Eagle Street Looking Toward Valley Street
16
Eagle Street After Dark
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Valley Street Coal Company, 81 Valley Street
LEFT TO RIGHT: James "Pipe Daddy" Walker, Unidentified Man, Regan Baird
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Josie McCullough, Valley Street
Unidentified Man, Valley Street
19
Unidentified Man, Valley Street Coal Company, 81 Valley Street
20
"Big Barber" James Macon Jr., 89 Eagle Street
Yvette "Peanut" Clark, Valley Street
22
Uncle Felix's Store Front Apartment, 63-1/2 Eagle Street,
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Children Behind the Mayflower Building
Trisha Bethea, Grail and Carver Streets
Velvet Street, LEFT TO RIGHT. Langdon Ray, Audrey Rice, Fernando Lynch,
Regina Lewis, Brenda Gaines, Sharon
Brown
25
Skatemobiles
26
Doorway in East End
27
Feldman's Grocery, 91 Eagle Street
28
Eagle Street Looking East
29
Nasty Branch
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Kudzu-Covered Home, East End
Unidentified Man Plowing, East End
AnnieMae Byrd
32
ISBN
978-1-60743-684-3
90000>