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Charlotte's new African-American heritage center opened Saturday, with its namesake calling it a monument to the struggle for equality.
“This beautiful, awesome building is far beyond my wildest dreams,” said former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt. “I feel good about what this magnificent building represents – how far we have come.”
Dedication ceremonies included three generations of Charlotte mayors. Gantt, who led the city from 1983 to 87; Pat McCrory, the current and outgoing mayor; and Anthony Foxx and John Lassiter, the two candidates in November's election.
“Former mayor to former mayor, you have been a great role model,” McCrory told Gantt. “You are the best of Charlotte and I am so glad to see your name on this building.”
With three main art galleries, educational spaces and a rooftop terrace, the $18.6 million Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture is one of the key elements of a cultural campus devised by Wachovia while planning its 48-story uptown tower at South Tryon and Stonewall streets. Other pieces of the campus are the new Knight Theater, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and a new uptown home for the Mint Museum.
The Gantt Center will be the home of the Hewitt Collection, a group of 58 works by 20th century African-American artists that was acquired by Bank of America and donated to the center. Among the artists are including Henry Ossawa Tanner, Elizabeth Catlett and Charlotte native Romare Bearden.
“Charlotte has become known as a can-do city,” said David Taylor, the center's president, referring to the private-public partnership that brought the cultural campus to life. “Public and private sectors came together to do extraordinary things.”
