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Chavis: Civil Rights Movement Needed More Now Than Five Decades Ago

Published

11 years ago

January 20, 2015

Oakland Post

Ben Chavis defends value of Black Press (Courtesy Photo)

Ben Chavis (Courtesy Photo)

By Nathan Hardin
Special to the NNPA from The Fayetteville Observer

PEMBROKE – Civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis kicked off a week-long Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in Pembroke on Friday by saying a civil rights movement is of greater need in the state now than it was nearly five decades ago.

“One of the last things that Dr. King said before his assassination was that we must strive toward economic justice as well as racial justice,” Chavis said. “That’s certainly true. There’s too much poverty. Too many people are still near foreclosure. So we’ve got some work to do. I would say in 2015 we need a civil rights movement today more than we needed it years ago.”

Chavis, a native of Oxford, was an assistant to King, who inspired him to work in the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Chavis was one of the Wilmington 10, nine black men and a white woman, who were convicted of fire-bombing a grocery store in Wilmington during racial unrest in 1971. The convictions were overturned based on evidence of perjury and prosecutorial misconduct. The group was later granted gubernatorial pardons.

During a VIP reception at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, the 66-year-old told students and faculty the state was divided into two North Carolinas.

“One progressive and one reactionary,” he said. “One going forward and one going backward.”

He commended the Rev. William Barber, who has led Moral Monday protests since spring 2013 in response to legislation passed by the Republican-led General Assembly.

“I think that we’re now celebrating the legacy and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King and certainly Dr. King’s legacy falls on the progressive side,” he said as he mingled with the crowd. “I’m hoping people use the 2015 King ceremonies to reaffirm the importance of inclusiveness.”

As a young teacher in Lumberton City Schools, Frances Cummings remembered following Chavis after the Wilmington 10.

“He empowered me with his ideas, his thoughts and his action,” she said. “As a result of listening and following him, it gave me strength to be a change agent, a shaper and mover – to make things better for the total population.”

Cummings, 73, saw firsthand school integration and discrimination in the late ’60s, she said, and used Chavis’ experience for motivation. She moved on from teaching school to a successful political career, serving in the N.C. House of Representatives.

“Fortunately or unfortunately, I helped to integrate the Lumberton City Schools, and it was my experiences there that caused me to be more determined for change,” she said. “To work with all people, to bring all people together for the good of the cause, which was what he was doing.”

Chavis also spoke directly to a group of students who were among the roughly 30 people in attendance Friday night.

“To all of the young students here, your college educations are probably the most important years of your life,” he said. “You’re not only laying an academic foundation, but you’re laying the foundation with how you’re going to interact with the larger world.”

Jamar Smith, a 21-year-old senior, said Chavis is a Phi Beta Sigma fraternity brother and said he came out to hear Chavis’ remarks on community service and the civil rights movement.

“Being able to listen to him as a fraternity brother who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King and to see where he’s come from and all the work he’s done kind of gives us a second wind to push forward and to use what he’s done and to try to implement it today in our work and our service,” Smith said.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

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2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.