Photo taken by Andrea Clark of the restroom located on Pack Square, at the Vance Monument.

The Andrea Clark Photograph Collection at Pack Memorial Library Now through March 31 – Don’t Miss It!

Currently on display at Pack Memorial Library is an exhibition of photographs from the Andrea Clark Photography Collection. The exhibition features 50 photographs taken in the East End neighborhood of Asheville in the early 1970s. Her subjects, accepting her as one of their own, allowed her to look directly into their faces and homes. The result is a compelling visual history of an often ignored segment of Asheville’s past.

Andrea’s grandfather James Miller was a black brick mason and contractor whose construction company built many Asheville churches, homes and public buildings. Andrea grew up in Massachusetts and came to Asheville as a young woman in the late 1960s.

The segregated black community she saw in the East End neighborhood amazed her, and she began taking photographs. The 1970s were a time of great change in Asheville. Attempting to integrate institutions and improve living conditions in the black community, the city of Asheville began an ambitious program of urban renewal.

Hundreds of buildings on and around Valley and the Southside area were removed, and residents of that area were scattered across the city. Sadly, along with deteriorating structures, the black citizens of Asheville also lost beloved neighborhood schools, black-owned businesses, and a strong sense of community. Andrea Clark’s powerful images document that lost African-American community, preserving a place and way of life that no longer exists.

Before obtaining these photographs, the Pack Library collection included only a few photographs of the once vibrant East End neighborhood, now just a fading memory. Thanks to Andrea Clark’s striking photographs, the people and places of that community can live again.

Exhibition Schedule

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