Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Inspired by a grand old building

Quick: What’s the highest spot of ground in Charlotte?

Answer: Biddle Hall at Johnson C. Smith University on Beatties Ford Road.
JCSU threw a small party Tuesday to celebrate its 140th anniversary and to show off its recently renovated Biddle Memorial Hall, which dates to 1883. It’s the red brick building with a tall clock tower visible from I-77. In demolition-happy Charlotte it’s one of only a few buildings remaining from the post-Civil War era.

Biddle Hall inspires in several ways. Atop the city’s highest hill, the views from President Dorothy Cowser Yancy’s fourth-floor office are stunning. She’s eye-to-eye – across the chasm of I-77 and a chunk of uptown – with the Bank of America Corporate Center.

It’s also inspiring to remember that more than a century ago, JCSU students had to help build Biddle Hall. As a historically black college, it has never benefited from the wealth lavished on a Harvard or Yale, or even UNC Chapel Hill. For the not-so-long-before enslaved black residents of the South, the chance to attend what was then Biddle Memorial Institute and get an education must have felt like a mirage come to life.

The luncheon’s guests, almost all women, included a number of current and former elected officials as well as civic activists and philanthropists. That, too, made many of us there feel a quiver of pride in what women have accomplished at JCSU and elsewhere, once we got a chance. Like many colleges, JCSU began as all-male. It didn’t admit women until 1932, and Dr. Yancy is the school’s first female president.

Finally, from the numbers of alumni in attendance and referred to with such affection, I glimpsed the closeness of the JCSU family. Several, such as Charlotte civic activist Jeanne Brayboy (who isn’t an alumna), have families with numerous generations of JCSU graduates.

Fun trivia: Among the school’s alumni are former U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton, who with Rep. Mel Watt in 1992 became North Carolina's first two black members of Congress since 1901; Vera and Darius Swann, whose lawsuit against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools led to the U.S. Supreme Court ordering desegregation in 1971; John Rice, father of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Biddle Hall is one of Charlotte’s treasures – and not just for the black community but for the whole city. It’s worth a visit.

The hall’s renovation won a 2005 award from Preservation North Carolina. If you’d like to contribute to the school to help with upkeep of the newly restored hall, here’s a mailing address:

Send tax-deductible donations to Johnson C. Smith University, c/o Office of Development, 100 Beatties Ford Rd., Charlotte, NC 28216.

5 comments:

Pathmaker said...

Thanks, Mary for highlighting this great but scantly recognized part of Charlotte and its history. It is one of the few reminders of Charlotte's past.

Anonymous said...

Writer David Brussat in the Providence Journal praising the green value of old buildings: "..the most intrinsically "green" buildings are those that already exist. This is because constructing a new building consumes 15 to 30 times the building's annual energy use. Reusing it after its original purpose is obsolete makes an old building even greener, because the new purpose does not require a new building..”
   

Anonymous said...

It is so interesting to know where the tallest spot of ground in Charlotte is!! Also, I really wish we had more of a sense of preservation in this town. Amazing, thanks for that information.

tarhoosier said...

I thought that the Water plant on Beattys Ford was the high point of Charlotte.

By the way, and way off topic, what is the spelling of Beatty's Ford? Beattys? Beatty's? Beatties? Beattie's? There are official signs with different spellings. Who was the man/ family who named the ford, or vice cersa?

tarhoosier said...

I thought the Water Plant just out Beatty Ford Rod was the high point in Charlotte. Which is it?
By the way there are several ways of spelling Beatties Ford on City signs. Beattie's Beatties, Beatty's Beattys. Who was the person/family?