Twilight of a Neighborhood - North Carolina Humanities Council

Stumptown, Burton Street, and East End, the fabric
of each of these historic African American communities
was torn apart.
Dr. Mindy Fullilove, professor of clinical psychiatry
and public health at Columbia University, defines this
process as “root shock” in her groundbreaking Root
Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts
America and What We Can Do About It. root shock,
according to Fullilove, is “the traumatic stress reaction
to the loss of some or all of one’s emotional ecosystem.”
This devastation of social networks, Fulliove
explains, “is a profound…upheaval that destroys the
working model of the world that had existed in the
individual’s head”; it results in a rupturing of individual
and communal identity.
As people looked at Clark’s photographs and
attended programs, they voiced their experiences
as a profound sense of loss; they had a keen
Vol. 14, Issue 1,
s ummer/Fall 2010
Guest Editor: Karen Loughmiller
Managing Editor and Publisher:
Harlan Joel Gradin, Associate
Director of Programs/Director of
Community Development, North
Carolina Humanities Council
North Carolina Humanities
Council Staff:
Shelley J. Crisp
Lynn Wright-Kernodle
Genevieve Cole
Darrell Stover
Jennifer McCollum
Donovan McKnight
Carolyn Allen
Anne Tubaugh
Tim Wolfe
Design:
Kilpatrick Design
www.kilpatrickdesign.com
Founding Publication
Team of Crossroads:
Katherine Kubel
Pat Arnow
Mary Lee Kerr
Lisa Yarger
Harlan Joel Gradin
IssN 1094-2351 ©2010
addItIoNal resources
Brunk, Robert S., ed., May We All Remember
Well: A Journal of the History & Culture of
Western NC. Vol. 2. Asheville: Robert S.
Brunk Auction Services, Inc., 1983.
Fullilove, Mindy Thompson. Root Shock: How
Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts
America and What We Can Do About It.
New York: One World/Ballantyne, 2005.
Hanchett, Thomas W. Sorting Out the New South
City: Race, Class, and Urban Development
in Charlotte, 1875–1975. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Mosley-Edington, Helen. Angels Unaware:
Asheville’s Women of Color. Asheville:
Home Press, 1996.
—.Visionaries: Asheville’s Women of Color.
Asheville: Home Press, 2000.
Neufeld, Rob, and Henry Neufeld. Asheville’s
River Arts District (Images of America: North
Carolina). Charleston: Arcadia Publishing,
2008.
oNlINe collectIoNs aNd exhIbIts
The Andrea Clark Photographic Collection. North
Carolina Collection, Pack Library, Buncombe
County Public Libraries, Asheville, NC. www.
buncombecounty.org/governing/depts/library/
Gallery/andreaClark/default.htm.
Asheville Housing Authority Records and
Heritage of Black Highlanders Collection.
D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections,
University of North Carolina at Asheville.
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/blackhigh/default_blackhigh.html.
An Unmarked Trail: Stories of African Americans
in Buncombe County from 1850–1950.
understanding of what the cost of urban progress
meant for them.
Southside resident robert Hardy poetically describes
his own experience: “But the Land!…The community
breakdown: family displacement and the loss of businesses,
neighbors, continuity, sanguinity, customs,
cultures, and social norms.” One tangible symbol of
this process was the change of the name of valley
Street to South Charlotte Street after a relative of one
of Asheville’s largest slave owners, Charlotte Patton.
“Twilight of a neighborhood” alerted all of Asheville
to the personal stories of how people experienced
the past. Andrea Clark’s photographs capture the
full spectrum of community life in Asheville’s East
End in 1970. The images portray a neighborhood
with bustling business and street life, gardens where
people grew their own food, and sidewalks on which
children played under the watchful eyes of elders.
Digital Exhibit. Center for Diversity
Education, University of North Carolina
at Asheville, 2008. www.diversityed.org/
unmarked-trail.
With All Deliberate Speed: School Desegregation
in Buncombe County. Digital Exhibit. Center
for Diversity Education, University of North
Carolina at Asheville. www.diversityed.org/
deliberate-speed.
specIal thaNks
This expanded edition of Crossroads has been
made possible by contributions to the North
Carolina Humanities Council from the following
donors:
• SF James and Diane M. Abbott
• Rob Amberg and Leslie Stilwell
• DeWayne Barton
• Kenneth Betsalel and Heidi Kelley
• Andrea Clark
• Harlan Joel Gradin
• Johnnie Robinson Grant
• Harry Harrison
• Buck Hinman
• Holly Jones
• Millie Jones
• Karen Loughmiller
• Mountain Housing Opportunities
• Dwight and Dolly Mullen
• Betsy Murray
• Priscilla Ndiaye
• Marc Rudow and Deborah Miles
• James Samsel and Kim McGuire
• Will Scarbrough
• Ed Sheary
• Stephens-Lee Alumni Association, Inc.
• Jonathan Tambellini
• UNC Asheville Center for Diversity Education
• UNC Asheville Intercultural Center
• Alexandra J. Vrtunski
•
Cindy Visnich Weeks