North Carolina People Archives

Romare Bearden — Beat of a Different Drum Exhibit

January 12, 2016 by Lisa Frame Leave a Comment

Black History Month is kicking off in Fayetteville this year with the Romare Bearden Beat of a Different Drum exhibit. Original prints from Bearden’s only published children’s book, Li’l Dan, The Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story, will be the highlight of the Fayetteville/Cumberland County Arts Council. Featuring twenty-six original watercolors created by Bearden for the book, there will also be text panels with audio narration by Maya Angelou.

Join the Cumberland County Art's Council for Romare Bearden Beat of a Different Drum for Black History Month

Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story was published posthumously in September of 2003. The book tells the story of Li’l Dan, a slave on a Southern plantation. He loves to play his drum. When a company of Union soldiers announces the slaves have been set free, Dan has no place to go, so he follows the soldiers, who make him their mascot. When Confederate soldiers attack, Dan discovers that he is the only one who can save his friends.

©Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

©Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

The free exhibition is open from January 22 through March 5, 2016, during regular gallery hours. An array of dynamic programming is planned around this exhibit, including a lecture by Diedra Harris-Kelly, Co-Director of the Romare Bearden Foundation in New York City, performance of an original play entitled The Color of Courage, lectures and music programs from the Fayetteville State University Fine Arts Department and a drum workshop for youth. Several historical components will be included in the display, including an original Civil War drum, a reproduction Union Soldier’s Uniform, a southern Civil War-era female outfit, a bayonet and an original painting of the Fayetteville arsenal before it was destroyed in 1865.

©Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

“This exhibition and related programming offers a fitting celebration of an artist hailed as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden,” says Mary Kinney, Director of Marketing at the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County. “Additionally, we’re proud that the exhibit ties together many cultural components – Civil War and African-American history, visual arts and theater.”

About Romare Bearden

Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden’s work is included in many important public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. He has had retrospectives at the Mint Museum of Art (1980), the Detroit Institute of the Arts (1986), as well as numerous posthumous retrospectives, including The Studio Museum in Harlem (1991) and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2003).

About The Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County

The Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County was founded in 1973. As a link between artists, arts and cultural organizations and the community, the nonprofit agency administers programs in partnership with a variety of local agencies to stimulate community development through the arts. The Arts Council supports individual creativity, cultural preservation, economic development and lifelong learning through the arts.

About the Fayetteville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau

The Fayetteville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau is a private, not-for-profit organization responsible for positioning Fayetteville/Cumberland County as a destination for conventions, sporting events and individual travel. For additional information, visit www.visitfayettevillenc.com or call 1-800-255-8217.

Learn More about Romare Bearden Park located in Uptown Charlotte.

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The Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County is located at 301 Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC

Filed Under: North Carolina Art, North Carolina Events, North Carolina People Tagged With: Cumberland County, Fayetteville, Maya Angelou, Romare Bearden

North Carolina’s Nepalese Community Aids Earthquake Victims

April 28, 2015 by Ilina Ewen Leave a Comment

North Carolina's Nepalese Community

I’m going to India soon. It’s my first trip back to the country of my birth in 20 years. This will be my husband and sons’ first time there. We’ll be visiting this vast country, rich in its colorful tapestry of history and culture. We had actually toyed with going to Nepal as well. Plans changed.

I exhale a sigh of relief while simultaneously inhaling a grand breath of disbelief. In a matter of days I will be with my family in India, not far from the devastation that has rocked her neighbor Nepal.

North Carolina has a robust Indian and Nepalese community. We benefit from the myriad people who comprise this community in countless ways. Today this community stands tall and proud as it seeks to lifts its own.

Generous in spirit and so much more…

HOW TO HELP

The Nepal Center of North Carolina is raising money online at ncnepal.orgor by mail at 108 Marengo Drive, Morrisville, NC 27560

The N.C. Baptist Men group is sending volunteers and is raising money at www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/Type/Disaster-Relief.aspx or by mail at P.O. Box 1107, Cary, NC 27512

Duke University students are raising money online atwww.gofundme.com/swg6psg.

Filed Under: North Carolina People Tagged With: community, India, Nepal, travel

Duke’s Dr. Sallie Permar Researching AIDS Vaccine, Devotes Her Life to Maternal and Children’s Health

April 9, 2015 by Ilina Ewen 2 Comments

Duke has more than a championship basketball team. Even more amazing than Coach K is Dr. P.

The photo of Dr. Sallie Permar snapped by Bill Giduz of Davidson College perfectly captures her confidence, affability, and good nature. But don’t be fooled. Behind that smile is a bad ass.

Dr. Permar is an MD, PhD and a pedigreed pediatrician with degrees from Davidson, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard Medical School. What warms the heart of this public school advocate is that Sallie is also a product of Wake County Public Schools. She graduated from Broughton High School, just up the hill from my house.

Dr. Permar’s titles at Duke are impressive, if not a tish intimidating.

Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Assistant Professor in Immunology

Assistant Professor in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology

I hope 60 Minutes producers are standing by to schedule an interview with Sallie. She’s one of the few lucky ones whose work is changing the world. Sallie is a decorated doctor and researcher working on vaccines for AIDS and CMV, Cytomegalovirus, at Duke. I’m warning you to not Google Dr. Sallie Permar, lest you feel highly unaccomplished. Or maybe that’s just me…

Sallie’s contributions have been recognized by the White House, among others. Just last year she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Here’s the thing…Sallie Permar is jovial, funny, candid, and ever so approachable. She takes her work, but not herself, seriously. There’s no ego to bust through, and Sallie isn’t out to impress anyone with her accomplishments (I think I’ve already established that there are many.). She clearly loves what she does and is committed to maternal health and disease eradication.

Part of my advocacy work is with the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life program. I work to provide vaccines to children in developing countries, where a child dies of a vaccine preventable disease every 20 seconds. Let that sink in… I was fortunate to travel to Uganda with Shot@Life, where many mothers spoke of the horror of AIDS. Sallie’s work in Zambia and other parts of the African continent is leading to promising breakthroughs. There were mothers in Uganda who told me their wish for their family was that their children did not die of AIDS. That conversation has stuck with me, like a pin in my heart. Imagine how heartening it is to have met Dr. Sallie Permar, the woman who might be the key to making these mothers’ wishes come true.

Filed Under: North Carolina People, Uncategorized Tagged With: Duke, Durham, health, medicine

Dean Smith: A North Carolina Legend

February 8, 2015 by Lisa Frame Leave a Comment

Tonight North Carolina is mourning the loss of legendary University of North Carolina Chapel Hill basketball coach, Dean Smith. It does not matter if you are a fan of rival basketball programs, Dean Smith is a name you know and respect.

I’ve been a Carolina basketball fan since I was a young girl. When I met my husband, I joked my blood ran Carolina Blue to his Maryland red. My toddler cousins, now 26, used to say they were going to “bring Dean Smif out of retirement.”

Originally from Emporia, Kansas, Coach Smith had a 36 year coaching tenure at the UNC-CH, retiring with 879 victories, 2 national championships and 11 Final Fours. In short, he created a basketball dynasty for the University of North Carolina that is still going strong today.

A big proponent of desegregation, Charlie Scott was recruited by Coach Smith and the became university’s first African-American player to receive a scholarship to play while attending UNC-CH. Most don’t realize that UNC-CH was still rigidly segregated in 1959. Smith came to Carolina in 1961 and by 1966 Scott was playing for UNC.

To give backstory to Smith’s integration work, in 1964, he joined a local pastor, Robert Seymour, and a black theology student to integrate The Pines, a Chapel Hill restaurant. Smith was still an assistant coach at the time, but they walked to the restaurants and waited outside until they were seated. The following year, he helped Howard Lee, a black graduate student at UNC, buy a home in an all white neighborhood.

Fred Hobson, a retired UNC English professor who played on the all-white freshman basketball squad the same 1961–62 season Smith took over as head coach, said Smith got involved “not because he wanted to necessarily, but because he felt he had to. His father had led school integration in Kansas when he was growing up and carried that same deep sense of moral right and wrong. He simply had a firm desire to do the right thing and take a leadership role.** ”

Coach Smith retired in 1997, no longer able to give the enthusiasm needed to coach a program like Carolina. He still advised the Carolina basketball staff and worked tireless in his community. On July 17, 2010, his family released a statement that he had a “progressive neurocognitive disorder” and from then on, spent his last years quietly out of the spotlight.

Dean Smith was a memorable man and touched everyone who met him. He was a true leader in the state of North Carolina and that is what will stick with us. More than basketball championships or Final Four appearances, Coach Smith gave himself to North Carolina and served our state with selflessness, strength of character, and leadership. For that, we shall always love him.

“MichaelJordanDeanSmith” by Zeke Smith from Chapel Hill, NC, USA – Michael Jordan, Dean Smith. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.