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David Taylor vividly recalls his reaction when a friend suggested in March that he consider running Charlotte's Afro-American Cultural Center:
"You're out of your mind."
As a former chairman of the center, he knew the challenges. And with more than 30 years in financial services, he knew it would be a daunting undertaking.
The center was in the midst of an ambitious fund drive in a sour economy.
It was preparing to move from cramped quarters at a 99-year-old church to a sleek uptown building.
It was struggling for a leadership vision after going through six directors in 10 years.
The organization was at a turning point, but the more Taylor thought about it, the more it appealed to him.
Taylor was at a turning point, too. He was mired in despair from the murder of his son and, at age 55, was looking ahead at the last decade of his career.
In July he took the job.
On Saturday the doors swing open on the $18.6 million Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art + Culture, expected to be among the leading black heritage cultural centers in the nation.
Financial planning career
David Taylor grew up in Fayetteville. His father was an aide at the veterans' hospital, and his mother was a counselor at Fayetteville State University. He was one of four children in a comfortable, though not wealthy, family.
"We got very little of what we wanted, but got everything we needed. Life was good," he says.
He attended N.C. State University in Raleigh and moved to Charlotte in 1976. He embarked upon a career in financial services with Lincoln Financial, then MetLife, then his own firm investing money for clients.
His work often depended both on profitability and the expectation of growth. It is a skill set, he admits, that not only is he comfortable with but is the right fit for the center right now.
Citing Taylor's business background, the board's chairman, Earl Leake, announced his appointment by calling him ideal for the job, particularly with Charlotte's corporate community. Leake said building awareness of the quality of programming and building membership opportunities would be pivotal toward increasing the center's operating budget.
Taylor became active in civic affairs, serving on the Arts & Science Council and Urban League of Central Carolinas, among other groups. He was chairman of the Afro-American Cultural Center from 2004 to 2006, and later filled in as interim executive director.
Struggles and opportunities
Launched in 1974, the center faced numerous challenges in the last decade. Attendance, in the old Little Rock AME Zion Church at Seventh and North McDowell streets, had dwindled from about 12,000 to about 5,000 annually.
It struggled to raise money, and the board kept dismissing directors.
"We had plateaued," he said. "We had done all we could do with the facility.... Expectations of boards were high, and staff had to meet those expectations with limited resources."
But the center had opportunities, too.
In 1998, NationsBank - forerunner of Bank of America - bought the Hewitt Collection, 58 works by 20th-century African American artists, and donated it to the center with the understanding it would need to develop a new facility to display it.
"We had no money. We had no plan. We had no architect. All we had was a lot of desire," Taylor recalls.
Wachovia came up with a solution. It was planning a $600 million, 48-story office tower on South Tryon Street and began thinking about a cultural campus with museums at its base - the Knight Theater, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, a new home for the Mint Museum and the African-American Center.
The facilities are being paid for largely by Charlotte-Mecklenburg tax revenue, including rental-car taxes and part of the office tower's property taxes. The tax money for the four facilities totals $121.5 million.
And on to the future
Taylor, a dynamic 6-foot-2, spends his days on the phone talking with potential donors, managing the center's budget and focusing on program development.
He says the center's success will be measured on several levels.
First is attendance. Looking at the achievement of other new African American heritage museums like those in Baltimore, Cincinnati and San Francisco, Taylor hopes to attract 100,000 visitors annually in a few years, a number he admits is "audacious."
But even if only 20,000 people pass through, the center will make its $1.3 million budget, which includes grants from the Arts & Science Council and the N.C. Arts Council. The admission fee will be about $8.
"We have to find our ' Wow,'" Taylor says. "Discovery Place brings in the Dead Sea Scrolls or Body Works. The Blumenthal does 'Color Purple' or 'Phantom of the Opera.' The Mint with King Tut's treasures. That's their ' Wow.' We have to find our ' Wow.' We find our ' Wow' and we'll find our 100,000."
Outreach is important, too, particularly promoting art appreciation among children.
"I think that's an expectation of this community," he says. "They expect us to impact children."
And the center must reach beyond racial boundaries to attract visitors.
"We don't want people to think, 'That's not for me.' ... Arts organizations close the cultural divide between people. We have a great opportunity to do that."
Taylor says the center is thinking about an artist-in-residence program, a lecture series involving art experts, renowned artists and authors and summer camps, and a father-daughter arts program.
If marketed correctly, he says, the center will draw from both Carolinas and beyond.
"There isn't anything like this in most cities. Even Atlanta doesn't have one that competes."
And historically black events like the CIAA tournament and the Baptist convention, which will meet a block away at the convention center in 2010, offer marketing opportunities.
Says Gantt, Charlotte's first black mayor and the center's namesake: "I am hopeful that it becomes a big stage for the enrichment of the Charlotte community, especially our children, on the significant cultural heritage and history of African Americans and their impact historically and today on this region."
In March 2008, in a stronger economy, the center launched a founder's campaign with a fundraising target of $3.5 million to help pay for start-up costs and programming. As of last week, $2.8 million had been raised, says Patrick Diamond, the center's development director. "Despite the economy, we've got some good momentum."
Diamond thinks the group will meet its target before the March 2010 deadline. More than 400 people are expected at a gala Friday night for the supporters who have donated $10,000 or more.
Taylor's own struggles
Taylor loved the world of finance and investments. But on Sept. 22, 2006, his life changed.
His son, David Taylor II, 29, already under indictment in federal court in Charlotte in a loan-fraud case, was killed by a gunshot to the head at a Holiday Inn in Fort Lee, N.J., during a robbery. A few days earlier, the younger Taylor and a friend were seen in Harlem flashing a wad of cash. Among those convicted was Charly Wingate, a rising New York rapper who went by the name Max B, and who was sentenced in September to 75 years in prison.
"Three years ago, David was killed," Taylor says. "That happened, and words can't explain how that impacts somebody."
In his grief, Taylor says, he lost his passion for financial services. His investment company, Dillingham & Taylor Wealth Management LLC, was dissolved.
There was one bright spot, one spark in conversation, he recalled. That was when he discussed the promise of the African-American center. Finally someone suggested he seek the top spot. Finally he did.
"I wouldn't say the center has saved my life, but it has improved my life. My blood pumps and flows in a way it hasn't in a long time. If I could write a script for recovery, I don't think I could make it much better.
"I come in every day knowing I do this because I want to do this."
