Andrea Clarke,  photojournalist. Photo: Urban News

Staff reports

Andrea Clark began taking her photos of Asheville’s East End community around 1968, and she published many of them in conjunction with the Buncombe County Library just over forty years later. Now, in all their historic significance, they are on display at UNC Asheville to celebrate Black History Month.

The East End neighborhood had been the heart of Asheville’s African American community since the 19th century when it was described by Thomas Wolfe in Look Homeward, Angel. Generations of families lived within walking distance of The Block, the vibrant shopping district centered at the corner of Eagle and South Market Streets. Up the hill from Valley Street (now South Charlotte Street), the segregated Stephens-Lee High School was the pride of the African American community.

But by the mid-1970s much of the East End was only a memory; what remained had been permanently altered by an ambitious Urban Renewal project. Half of Stephens-Lee was gone. On The Block, the YMI Cultural Center and Mt. Zion Baptist Church are reminders of a more vibrant past.

Fortunately for all of Asheville, Andrea Clark made her stunning visual record of an all but vanished time and place. Her discerning eye has brought the East End back, to those who remember it as well as those who never knew it.

Andrea Clark’s photographs are on display in Blowers Gallery in the Ramsey Library at UNC Asheville now through February 28. Admission is free and open to the public. An opening reception will be held from 4:00 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 11. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call (828) 232-5000.