Guest Blogger: Patricia Atilano Co-organizer of The Changing South: Women in Poetry & local writer

Being a women in any part of the world, is a passionate challenge that transforms with supreme beauty in her environment.  Woman is beauty, and beauty is woman.

The Changing South: Women in Poetry, is an event by Levine Museum of the New South to celebrate all women. These six amazing women will speak in Libertad from different parts of the earth. They will unite to share with us their experiences, their stories, and their battles. They make a symbolic relay to exorcise their natural fears, from their powerful identity and inspire us with their creative capacity through one of their manifestations of the arts; Poetry.


Let’s surround these women with attitude that celebrate their femininity, their strength, and life itself!

Ser mujer en cualquier parte del mundo, en cualquier sociedad es un reto apasionante que transforma con suprema belleza su entorno.  Mujer sinónimo de belleza, y belleza sinónimo de mujer.  

The Changing South: Women in Poetry, es un evento del Museo Levine del Nuevo Sur (Levine Museum of the New South) para celebrar a todas las mujeres.

Estas seis mujeres luchadoras que conversan en libertad, de diferentes partes del mundo, se unen para compartir con todos nosotros, sus experiencias, sus historias, y sus luchas.

Hacen un simbólico relevo, un ejercicio de exorcismo de su medio natural, de su ponderosa identidad, y que nos inspiran con su capacidad creadora, a través de una manifestación de las artes; la poesía.

Contagiémonos de la actitud de estas mujeres, que celebran su feminidad, su fuerza y la vida misma.

by Patricia Atilano

Co-organizer of The Changing South: Women in Poetry & local writer

Join us this evening for a special poetry presentation at 5:30p.m.  

Share your story below.

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Diggin' History Through Music and Dance: A.M. "Toni" Tupponce

Many performers and women‭ ‬often recall a moment‭ ‬when they‭ ‬“found their voice.‭”‬ Where and when did you find your voice‭? ‬How has it impacted what you do both as a vocalist and an individual‭?

Finding‭ ‬“my voice‭”‬ has been a journey that I am still on‭…‬with no arrival date or end place in sight.‭ ‬From the time that I first started singing as a solo or lead vocalist in college‭…‬.my instructors and mentors called me a‭ ‬“torch singer‭”‬.‭  ‬I was only interested in singing songs that evoked some kind of emotion in the listener‭…‬I wanted to touch them somewhere.‭  ‬Whether I was singing R&B,‭ ‬Blues,‭ ‬Jazz or Gospel‭…‬if I did not connect with the lyric and the melody,‭ ‬truthfully,‭ ‬I did not care to sing it.‭  ‬I was subsequently convinced that if I wanted to‭ ‬“work‭”‬ I had to broaden my repertoire and skill set to sing songs to get people‭ ‬“dancing‭”‬!  I also believed,‭ ‬but not for long,‭ ‬that my voice and range needed to be higher‭!  ‬So I tried to force this natural contralto of mine into a stronger soprano.‭  ‬That only led to frustration and could have led to injury.‭  ‬As I got older and listened more to the truly great vocalists‭ ‬….Carmen McCrae,‭ ‬Billie Holiday,‭ ‬Nancy Wilson,‭ ‬Dinah Washington,‭ ‬the late Eva Cassidy and Phyllis Hyman as well as Donny Hathaway and of course Sarah Vaughn‭ (‬whose range is off the charts‭)‬…and‭  ‬so many others‭ ‬…I learned that I only need to sound like the best‭ ‬Toni that I possibly can.‭  ‬So now,‭ ‬while getting people on their feet has its place for me‭…‬.‭ ‬when I sing‭ ‬I go for the emotional jugular and make no apologies for it‭…‬whether the song touches you to tears or crazy laughter‭…‬.I just want to‭ ‬feel what I sing and to share a conversation with the other musicians and the listener that says we‭ ‬“get‭”‬ each other‭! ‬The impact has been that I am probably more vulnerable much of the time.‭  ‬And,‭ ‬I hope,‭ ‬I am more authentic.‭  ‬My goal is to always perform as if I may never get the chance to do it again.‭  ‬I do not always meet that mark‭…‬.and I am disappointed in myself when I don‭’‬t because I think I‭’‬ve cheated my audience and myself

"Toni" Tupponce

As we‭ ‬celebrate‭ ‬Women‭’‬s History Month,‭ ‬what women‭ ‬–famous or not‭—‬have influenced you‭? ‬How‭? ‬What do you hope your example is for young women today‭?


My first influence was my Mom‭…‬.she was a‭ ‬real‭ ‬“youngster‭”‬ when I was coming up.‭  ‬She‭’‬d finished college and worked a little by the time she had me‭…‬.but she had the heart of a child and a tremendous‭ ‬“Mom psychology‭”‬ that defied her youth.‭  ‬She gave me the grounding even in the mid‭ ‬1950‭’‬s to embrace myself as a black girl and to see it as‭ ‬beautiful.‭ ‬I was placed in the position of desegregating a small Catholic parochial school in my hometown in Virginia when I was‭ ‬5‭ ‬years old.‭  ‬Without that grounding,‭ ‬I would have come out of that experience a very different young woman.‭   ‬Second was my Aunt Emma‭…‬.who taught me that loving someone does not guarantee you that they will love you back and you have to live on‭…‬still whole and loving yourself.‭  ‬I admired icons like Fanny Lou Hammer,‭ ‬Myrlie Evers,‭ ‬Josephine Baker,‭ ‬Angela Davis,‭ ‬Lena Horne,‭ ‬and my Speech and English instructor in college,‭ ‬Miss Mary Bohannon‭…‬she took no prisoners and expected excellence in written and oratory expression.‭  ‬She cared nothing about embarrassing you when you were wrong and when you did well,‭ ‬it was no more than she expected of you.‭  ‬Most people dropped her course as soon as they drew the short straw with her name at registration‭!  (‬she‭’‬d‭ ‬love hearing that as scared‭ ‬as I was of her‭!)



A Sign of the Times is finishing‭ ‬this year‭’‬s Diggin‭’‬ History Through Music and Dance series on Wednesday.‭ ‬What has this program meant for you and the band‭? ‬What has stuck with you about how audiences have responded‭?


This is our third season of‭ ‬“Diggin History‭…”‬ at the Levine Museum of the New South‭!  ‬In terms of what it‭’‬s meant‭…‬I can only speak for myself‭…‬its been wonderful.‭  ‬I am so proud of my husband‭’‬s tenacity in putting this series together and pulling it off.‭  ‬It only gets better each year,‭ ‬I think.‭  ‬Because we‭’‬ve focused on the history of Black people from throughout the African Diaspora this year‭…‬it has drawn me closer to the shared history with sisters and brothers who are Hispanic‭…‬whether from Brazil,‭ ‬Venezuela,‭ ‬Haiti,‭ ‬Cuba,‭ ‬Mexico or Puerto Rico‭…‬.we are related through our ancestral lineage,‭ ‬our enslaved history,‭ ‬our tenacity and our music‭!  ‬Is that not awesome‭?  ‬That connection should bring us together in this community‭…‬.and I pray we will stop letting the media or the powers that be keep us apart.‭  ‬We can get beyond the spoken language‭…‬every time,‭ ‬as Tyrone says,‭ ‬that we say:‭ ‬“1,‭ ‬2,‭…‬1,‭ ‬2,‭ ‬3,‭ ‬4‭…‬..‭”‬ and the rhythm kicks off into something fierce‭!   ‬The audience response has been tremendous.‭  ‬The numbers keep growing.‭  ‬And best of all,‭ ‬people want to know MORE‭!  ‬This year they are requesting bibliographies and young people are asking for recommended reading to begin their journey of knowledge‭…‬it doesn‭’‬t get any better than that.



In your experience,‭ ‬where do art and activism meet‭?


Art and activism meet everywhere that we are.‭  ‬Art is a reflection of society at any given time.‭  ‬It is reflected in everything from rap music and hip-hop to the messages that we are tolerating on television and in the movies.‭  ‬The greater the actual numbers of‭ ‬“minorities‭”‬ the more negative the media message.‭  ‬I do not think this is accidental.‭  ‬So art has to challenge that‭…‬speak truth to the masses in ways that it can be heard,‭ ‬envisioned,‭ ‬shared and embraced.‭  ‬Our ancestors hid their messages in the drums,‭ ‬lyrics of spirituals,‭ ‬carvings‭…‬.so nothing is new‭!‬  I used to want art to be pretty and make me feel good‭…‬.and I still do.‭  ‬But I think that art should also make me a little uncomfortable at times‭…‬shake me up and make me reconsider my position and question what I know.‭  ‬That‭’‬s why I love that we are having our dialogues at the Levine‭!  ‬The museum has stepped out into some uncomfortable territory at times‭…‬.and I thank you for it.

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Ask an Activist! Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid

Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid is a participatory art project, conceived and orchestrated by artist Annabel Manning. Immigrant youth from Charlotte and the Triangle area of North Carolina collaborated with Manning to create portraits, which were then digitally altered to portray the youth's visible and invisible status simultaneously.  Compelling and personal, the pieces featured in the exhibit demonstrate how art can be a deliberative and imaginative forum for exploring complex issues about immigrant labor, education, and legal status.

Please meet activist and artist, "Touchdown" 

Does the concept of being both visible and invisible relate to your experience, and if so, how? 

Yes. I participate in this society as any other regular person but then there are moments that always remind you that you are not quite the regular person…that there is something missing and that it will limit you. Traditionally, before growing to questioning the immigration system and all that benefit from its lack of working, I understood that not having legal status must be kept secret or invisible as much as possible. Every day was about negotiating identity in a home that is not “your own.” Even today with all the empowerment that has come from being involved in the immigrant youth rights movement, it is still difficult to branch out outside of social justice circles and be fully visible. You don’t know how people will react…to a certain point one may not care but the fact is that the system in which daily life functions with things such as employment, you must be kept invisible or at least the full you and your identity must not be known. At the end of the day it is still a liability upon which many things depend on. 


When did you first become aware of your circumstance of being undocumented? What is it like to be undocumented?

I became aware of this status upon crossing the border by foot with my family. Additionally, it became evident that I was different when I was in school K-12th grade. I was very aware of this immigration status because everything was pointing in the direction of hiding it or making it invisible and just faking it but as youth sometimes that is the last thing you are willing to do. I did not want to participate in a mock presidential election at my elementary school because I had to vote and I knew then that was not allowed for someone like me who did not have a social security number. For me being undocumented became about learning how to negotiate my presence anywhere I went and often being very scared to open what I thought would be a Pandora's box type of situation. However, you learn that life has to continue and if you don’t go back to “your” country then you have to learn the ins and outs of living while being “illegal.” This encompasses everything from your friendships to your goals to the practical thing of getting fake social security numbers in order to get a job somewhere. That’s the truth. This country and its politicians push us to these fringes in which we have to make decisions for which results in either direction have you as the “illegal” losing out. 

What is your dream for immigration reform?

I don’t dream about immigration reform…anymore. I just dream of an empowered community that comes to understand that with or without immigration reform we are worth it and must not live afraid. If there is no reform then I would hope that undocumented people would live life being unafraid and willing to risk it all in this country because the alternative means losing our dignity. 


What does coming out of the shadows mean for you?

Coming out of the shadows for me means a process of healing. It does not necessarily get rid of the fear. Coming out of the shadows means you allow yourself to consider the possibilities of being deported or targeted and having a plan of action for that. It means breathing like you own yourself and your future instead of a nine digit number. It is only the beginning of a longer term process for liberation. 


Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid is on display now through June 29, 2014.

Tell us below what does activism mean to you.

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Faces of Freedom Summer: The Photographs of Herbert Randall

The Story Behind the Exhibit

Faces of Freedom Summer, an exhibit featuring 102 photographs taken by Herbert Randall in Hattiesburg, Miss., opens this Saturday, February 22. These powerful images document the struggles and triumphs of Civil Rights activists and disenfranchised African-American voters during the summer of 1964.

That summer, students of all races and backgrounds, voting rights organizers, and a coalition of local black residents worked together to secure the rights for all Americans to vote in the South. Among them were three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, who were murdered days after arriving to Mississippi.

Herbert Randall became the official photographer for the Freedom Summer project in 1964 when he met Sandy Leigh, director of Freedom Summer. Randall took 1,759 negatives that summer, which he donated to the University of Southern Mississippi in 1998. With the negatives carefully stored at the University's McCain Library and Archives, archivists began a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services called "Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archives" to preserve the images digitally.

Randall's photos were organized into an exhibit, which has traveled across the country since 1999.  Faces of Freedom Summer will be on display from February 22 through August 17, as part of Destination Freedom: Civil Rights Struggles Then and Now.

Learn more about Faces of Freedom Summer here.

After viewing these poignant images tag us on Instagram and purchase your copy of "Faces of Freedom Summer" by Herbert Randall on Amazon.

What lessons can we learn from the participants of Freedom Summer to use for causes today?

Leave your comment below or on Facebook. Share your thoughts on Twitter using the hashtag #DestinationFreedom.

Guest Blogger: Eric Mullis, Triptych Collective

Through lectures, panel discussions, book signings, workshops, walking tours and more, Levine Museum offers a wide variety of fun, learning opportunities. The Museum provides historical context for contemporary issues, thoughtful community forums, and explorations of the sights, sounds and ideas of the Carolina Piedmont.

The Museum also supports and participates in various community programs throughout Charlotte and the Southeast.  One of those is coming up in April at the Neighborhood Theatre in NoDa. We asked Eric Mullis of Triptych Collective to talk about the performance piece, “Poor Mouth,” here on our blog.

Do you see a familiar face? 

I became interested in developing a performance piece about the history of NoDa after reading [Museum historian] Tom Hanchett's book, "Sorting out the New South City."  The Triptych Collective is a group of performance artists interested in bringing a unique blend of live music, dance performance and visual art to non-traditional spaces in order to make thought-provoking performance art more widely accessible. The Triptych Collective calls the NoDa neighborhood home since we perform there regularly and local venues are so supportive of our work.  I learned that the NoDa mill village was developed at the turn of the 20th century and became the home of mill workers who came to Charlotte from area farms. They found steady work and developed a close-knit community that worked and spent leisure time together. As the Great Depression drew near, mills across the Southern Piedmont began to "stretch-out" their employees, asking them to work longer hours and to run more looms without raising their pay (effectively ignoring the then, recently passed federal minimum-wage law). Mill workers were consequently presented with a difficult dilemma: do they strike for fair pay even though they may not be re-hired? Further, if they strike, will they be evicted from the company-owned mill houses that they lived in?

Poor Mouth is a performance art piece that strives to portray this history in order to honor the mill worker families that lived, worked, and died in the mill village. The work also asks viewers to consider how the history of NoDa affects our experience of the neighborhood today. Do we have an obligation to remember the mill worker families? How would that obligation shape our sense of NoDa as a place?

The piece includes live dance by the Triptych Collective, music by NoDa-based band Ancient Cities, and text by Dr. Tom Hanchett.  Tom consulted the Collective about the history of the NoDa mill village and performed with the group in November of last year, in front of the abandoned Johnston mill and on December 12 at the Chop Shop in NoDa.  This work was developed with the assistance of a Cultural Innovation grant provided by the John S. and James L. Knight foundation and the Arts and Science Council.

We invite folks to come check out the next performance on April 24 at 8pm at the Neighborhood Theatre in NoDa.  Also, keep up with the development of our work on our Facebook page and on our website (triptychcollective.com).

Eric Mullis is a founding member of The Triptych Collective as well as musician, dancer and choreographer. 

What community programs have you enjoyed? 

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Ask an Artist! Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid

Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid is a participatory art project, conceived and orchestrated by artist Annabel Manning. Immigrant youth from Charlotte and the Triangle area of North Carolina collaborated with Manning to create portraits, which were then digitally altered to portray the youth's visible and invisible status simultaneously.  Compelling and personal, the pieces featured in the exhibit demonstrate how art can be a deliberative and imaginative forum for exploring complex issues about immigrant labor, education, and legal status.

Please meet artist and activist, Annabel Manning

What impact do you hope “Out of the Shadows” will have on the public?
I hope that the artwork in Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid will show the public how it feels to be in this state of being invisible and without rights. 

I am also interested in the complicity that all the documented (myself included) should feel for the predicament of the undocumented because we are partially responsible for it. I believe all U.S. citizens are complicit because we are benefiting from the work and culture of the Latinos and because, directly or indirectly, we help to make or keep them invisible. My hope is that the public will develop a sense of responsibility for this issue and fight for the rights that the undocumented youth deserve.

How has this Movement changed you? 
The visibility in the general public in North Carolina that the student youth have attained thus far has inspired me to expand this project.  The goal is to provide even more Latino undocumented youth (and their families) with art tools that allow them to express themselves visually and to engage the public in discussions or confrontations about the youth’s specific dreams and demands for immigration reform. 

How did you choose the medium for your artwork?
The show includes photographs, sunprints, monoprints, and a digital installation (with camera, mirror and projection) – all reflecting the youth’s experiences of feeling invisible in their communities, outside their families and friends, separating them into two selves: how they see themselves versus how others see them. This theme emerged from my discussions with them and then we adopted the mediums to capture it in multiple ways.

What does activism mean to you?
To be able to create participatory art activities with communities like Immigrant Youth Forum (IYF) and United 4 the Dream (U4TD) to engage the public in discussions or confrontations about the youth’s dreams, fears, and demands regarding civil rights, education, labor, and citizenship. 

Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid is on display now through June 29, 2014.

Tell us below what does activism mean to you.

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Ask an Artist!: A View From The Other Side

View from the Other Side features local artists' response to the previous exhibit, Network of Mutuality: 50 Years Post-Birmingham. The artists created pieces working within the topic of Civil Rights struggles in our region. Both exhibits are a part of the Museum's two-year series, Destination Freedom: Civil Rights Struggles Then and Now. To bring further insights into the exhibit, we took the opportunity to ask the artists about their artwork, what in history inspired them to create it and what they hope guest gain from their art. 

Next up: Antoine Williams, Local Artist and Designer

What part of history inspired your artwork?
When it comes to history, I'm interested in how human beings have interacted with one another. Therefore, points in time when one group exerts power over another and reaction that produces. More specifically, slavery up to Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, American military history, also the relationship between the ruling class and average people.

What do you hope guest experience when viewing your artwork?
Evoking any type of emotion is of particular interest to me. The view completes the piece. So, I hope they bring their own experiences to the work, coupled with what I've created maybe they can come to their own conclusions.

What roles does the community play in your art?
My work is a look at how socioeconomic factors can affect ones cultural identity, therefore, the art I'm creating is heavily influenced by the communities I grew up with and the ones I currently exist in now. 

What other imagery/ stories do you explore within your work?
Lately, I've been interested in merging representations of contemporary people from various social strata with early 18th century animal illustrations, as a look into how we create monsters out of those we deem different than ourselves.

Learn more about Antoine on his Tumblr and website.

Come view Antoine and other's artwork in the View from the Other Side exhibit at the Levine Museum, on display through February 2, 2014. 

Have you seen Antoine's artwork? Tell us what you think below.

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