I was disappointed last month when I dropped in on the Levine Museum of the New South only to find my favorite part of its award-winning “Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers” exhibit was closed for renovation.The other displays – ranging from a one-room tenant farmer’s house to a civil-rights-era lunch counter – are interesting enough, but the end section (closed since mid-January) is so much more urgent because it covers 1970 to 2010. It’s always fascinating to walk through knowing that these changes happened in Charlotte so recently.
The good news is that the uptown museum will reopen this expanded end section next Friday. Here are just a few of the many new highlights:
The 10-minute intro film has been completely revised, and now features narration by former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl, famed NASCAR promoter Humpy Wheeler, and radio personality Ramona Holloway.
A 1908 Union National Bank ledger displayed juxtaposed next to one of the first computer-linked ATMs.
A fire suit worn in 2009 by NASCAR driver and California native/now-New Southerner Jimmie Johnson.
The interactive “Picture Yourself in History,” which uses green-screen technology to allow visitors to superimpose themselves into a historic scene from the exhibit; they can then e-mail the image to themselves.
If you’d like a sneak peek at the updated exhibit – and have some disposable income to spend on a nice night out – the museum is hosting a 20th anniversary party called “Taste of Time” next Thursday evening. ($125 per person, or $100 for museum members.) Otherwise, make plans to visit on or after the grand reopening next Friday.
Details: www.museumofthenewsouth.org.
Also, read more about this great museum in the online version of SouthPark Magazine by clicking here.
The why we hate ourselves exhibit will soon be open for those who fully support the effort of this facility.
ReplyDeleteLately White Loathing has been a luxury but seems to be on the upswing and once again is being taught to the children as part of their upbringing in upscale homes as a trendy way of living.
The Observer will of course keep us fully informed of any changes and future race related matters that elevate us to the levels they want us to be, as they wish.
Any exhibits on "the banks that stole your wealth"? That seems to have been big around here the last decade or so.
ReplyDeleteSince others are already bitter and making smarta** remarks, I want to, too.
ReplyDeleteAn appropriate permanent exhibit would be "Charlotte Social Snobbery."
We ALL know how cliquey Charlotte is. From the "new money" snobs on the southside (who resent local native-borns), to the new honkies streaming in from Ohio, Michigan and upstate New York (who make no effort to say hi), to the creeps from NYC, NJ and Boston (Who all groups wish would leave and relocate to southeast Flordia).
:)
Larry is bitter about everything 24x7.
ReplyDeleteBitter, party of 1? Bitter, party of 1.
Theoden, thanks for the update on this excellent museum. :)
They make no effort to say hi becuase where they come from, it's an invitation to trouble.
ReplyDeleteI was in Los Angeles recently and said hello to a woman who passed me in our office corridor who then turned her nose up in the air!
I mean, I have a face for radio but that was just silly.
In some US cities, people are scared and fearful. And maybe snobby, too.
Funny how Larry posts who he is?
ReplyDeleteBut then again Larry does not attack people, because if he did he would not want to post his name.
Oh wait is that just a liberal thing?
Can't wait to see the refreshed exhibit. Thanks for the update!
ReplyDeleteMaybe they can add a new exhibit entitled "How Section 8, gangs and illegal immigrants ruined East Charlotte." I grew up there and miss the way it was. Simply unrecognizable now. And the sad part is nobody seems to care except for the people who still live there.
ReplyDeleteCut the so called "new" South brainwash. America was born in the South. Deal with it. The more things change the more they stay the same. America is the South.
ReplyDeleteThe South is where it all began for all of America over 500 yrs ago when European Italian Christian Columbus working for the King and Queen of Spain sailed west 3000 miles and landed in the South. He nailed a large wooden cross into the shore to claim the hemisphere symbolically for the Divine and all pagan ex-Asian indian migrants who were easily conquered by the Europeans in coming years.
St Augustine in what is now northern Florida was founded by Spain in 1565 of the South. Sir Walter Raleigh of England in 1585 set up a colony on Roanoke Island on the outer banks of what is now NC and then again in 1609 at Jamestown Va of the South.
In 1620 the Pilgrims blew off course 800 miles north and landed on a rock they named Plymouth but named the land Northern Virginia of the South. The north was technically a mistake caused by a blowjob.
Who laid the foundation for todays USA Republic but the South? Southerners wrote all the founding documents with the Declaration of Independence by 3rd prez Thomas Jefferson and US Constitution by 4th prez James Madison while Gen George Washington was named Father of the Nation and 1st prez and had the Capitol named for him. All southerners.
Cut the bogus "new" South label. The South is still the South and where it all began and whose documents are set in stone in Washington DC. Nothing has changed. All American citizens are southerners.
Cut the ignorance and educate yourself with factual history to understand all Americans citizens are borne of the South.