The Charleston City Paper covered the Passages Art Show and Sale hosted by the Emanuel AME Church located on Calhoun Street. The article (which can be found here) is especially interesting because while it celebrates the show commemorating the 150th anniversary of Emancipation, it also takes note of how far we still need to go to achieve true equality. The article includes the following incredible quote by Cookie Washington, a local Charleston artist who organized this showing:

“The reason why I thought of this was I was down in the Market one day — this was after the City of Charleston said, ‘No, we’re not going to do a big thing for the anniversary of the Emancipation’ — and I thought, there’s really no place for black art in this town. It was raining and those black basket ladies were sitting on folding chairs almost out in the street, weaving their baskets. And I’m like, this is an amazing, 400-year old beautiful craft … it’s demeaning. We still don’t honor the people who built this city. Everywhere you look, African Americans built this city.”

You can visit the exhibit from October 4th-6th for free at the Emanuel AME Church before it finds its permanent home at the Passages Art Gallery next spring.

Filed under: Jubilee Project