Stony the Road: Desegregating America's Schools Exhibit Debut at the YMI Cultural Center

March 22 - April 30, 2005

The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia will loan the YMICC its traveling photographic exhibition, Stony the Road: Desegregating America's Schools. The exhibit chronicles the journey towards desegregating public schools in America and the resistance to integration campaigned by many states with the desire to continue segregated school systems. With funding from Sun Trust and the Robbins Foundation, the BHMCC will showcase the exhibit in numerous sites across the country.

The 12-panel display explores the black experience as it relates to the fight for equal rights and a depart from second-class citizenship. The exhibit incorporates over forty archival photographs in a narrative that explores a number of themes in the march towards public school integration. Among the topics considered are legal maneuvers, both pro- and con- integration and the establishment of massive resistance; the Brown decision; the doctrine of separate, but equal; and the contributions of students and the NAACP through bold protest and structured legal tactics.

Stony the Road: Desegregating America's Schools", will be showcased at an opening reception in the YMI Cultural Center Galleries on Friday, April 1st, 2005. It premiered at the Richmond City Library in February of 2004 and has traveled to several states throughout America as the country celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Admission to this exhibition will be $5.00 per person and $4.00 for students. Special docent tours and group rates are available for organizations and school groups - please contact Margaret Fuller, Arts-In-Education Coordinator for bookings. As a partner in the City Center Gallery Walks and the Downtown Gallery Association, the YMI will kick-off the first downtown gallery crawl of the season with this in-depth exhibition. A series of gallery talks and panel discussions will follow the opening reception through May. See an overview of how America responded to one of the most influential court cases in the 20th century with highlights of the local movement in Asheville as we document our "Mountain Memories Circles" with the Center for Diversity Education (Deborah Miles - Executive Director).