National

Leaders Urge Patience In Achieving Change After Emanuel Nine

Published

11 years ago

July 17, 2015

Oakland Post

Dot Scott

by Barney Blakeney
Special to the NNPA from The Charleston Chronicle

It’s been some three weeks since nine worshippers at Emanuel AME Church were gunned down at a Bible study session in the church. After the shootings the community and nation displayed an unprecedented outpouring of compassion for he victims and survivors as well as outrage at the racism that prompted the atrocity.

Since the shootings the state and nation has bonded to remove the Confederate Flag as a political and social symbol of the racist hatred made evident by the atrocity. And now after Emanuel’s dead has been buried, local civil rights leaders say the substance of the racism and hatred the flag represents will take more time and patience.

As the nation learned of the July 17 atrocity at Emanuel immediate calls to stop the racism led to the action on the Confederate Flag, an action that began in 1999. Charleston NAACP President Dot Scott said her organization already has started to hold discussions with local businesses and institutions to address discrimination.

But she cautions that the community shouldn’t think that racial discrimination that’s existed centuries will change in three weeks.

“We need to change some things like what happens in employment and public education and we need concrete change. But we must remember it hasn’t even been a month since those nine people were killed at Emanuel. That was a game changer and things are changing as evidenced by the removal of the flag. Two weeks before July 17 we wouldn’t even have had that discussion.”

“Now we’re beginning to see people like Gov. Nikki Haley and others working to make a difference. But we shouldn’t delude ourselves to think things will be fixed overnight,” Scott said.

Rev. Nelson B. Rivers, pastor of Charity Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston and vice president of Operations and Religious Affairs for the National Action Network said economic empowerment is a change that must become a reality for African Americans after the sacrifice of the Emanuel Nine. While Blacks today have more money and education than ever before in American history, as a group they still don’t possess economic opportunity.

Citing the outpouring of compassion from whites after the atrocity at Emanuel, Rivers said, “We have to ask is this just a guilt trip or an opportunity to change the dynamics of racism in America.” He pointed to Charleston County School Board’s decision to name a candidate overwhelmingly opposed by Blacks and others as its new superintendent as an example of some people’s refusal to change.

“The deaths of the nine people at Emanuel didn’t mean jack to the school board. If they didn’t respect us in a time of our worst crisis, can we expect them to change in good times?” However he optimistically added, “We fought for the removal of the flag for 15 years and in just two weeks after Emanuel it’s coming down.”

But like Scott, Rivers said issues such as expanding Medicare, ceasing attacks on voting rights, employment discrimination and discrimination in criminal justice and incarceration will require patience. And renegotiating the relationship between Blacks and whites, he said.

“Renegotiating means if they don’t do business with us, we won’t do business with them. Collectively, as a community, we have to renegotiate a relationship that requires making structural changes in how things operate. First we must have that conversation within the Black community and ask ourselves if we are ready to renegotiate. Then we can go to others and let them know we don’t want more conversation. We want renegotiating.”

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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.

Published

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.