8A
STRICTLY BUSINESS/ The Charlotte Post
February 22, 1996
Memories of Brooklyn neighborhood
Continued from page 1A
class structure, with row
houses and shotgun houses
interspersed amid stately resi
dences of professionals. Those
who worked in the homes of
Myers Park and Dilworth
whites lived, played, ate and
went to church along with doc
tors, lawyers and school teach
ers.
“People were people and
they respected each other,”
said Ely, the first queen in
1948 of the Queen City Classic
football game between Second
Ward and West Charlotte
high schools.
“There was a closeness of
black people,” she said.
“Brooklyn was like a second
city. We were not allowed to
go to white establishments,
except maybe to the down
town area to shop, and we
were limited there.
“Brooklyn had its own movie
theaters, its own churches, its
own schools. We did not have
to leave Brooklyn to do any
thing.”
Hundreds of businesses were
among the structures razed as
urban redevelopment
destroyed the physical
Brooklyn during the 1960s.
Businesses like El Chico’s, Ma
Georges, Hood’s Tea Room,
the Ebony Guest House, bar
ber shops, beauty parlors,
garages. Some relocated, but
few thrived in their new loca
tions. Residents, forced to sell
homes for a fraction of what
they were worth, ended up
renting or living in public
housing.
“It was sad to see a lot of
homeowners lose their proper
ty,” Ely said. “It was sad to
see our neighborhood taken
away from us. They tore down
some beautiful churches, some
just built.”
In 1969, Second Ward High
School closed and it was tom
down a few years later.
“It was an awful thing to see
our school torn down,” said
Ely, who taught in Charlotte
for 32 years after graduating
from Shaw University in
Raleigh. She’s now historian
for the Second Ward Alumni
Foundation, which formed in
1980. The foundation, which
meets annually during Labor
Day weekend, maintains a
permanent exhibit in its house
at 1905 Beatties Ford Road.
The group, which has a
Maryland chapter, will also
put artifacts on display at
Theater Charlotte during “The
Second City” performance
next week.
“There’s still a special bond
with people from Brooklyn,
when you see people in a store
or participate in a Second
Ward High School reunion,”
Simmons said. “Anybody
that’s 40-plus got a little taste
of that.
“Brooklyn gave me my
strongest sense of interperson
al skills, the ability to get
along with people, to accord
each person, regardless of thei
station in life, respect. To
know that everybody is some
body. It keeps me humble and
lets me know how important
intangibles are - integrity,
dignity, love, caring and
pride.”
Ruth Sloane’s play to debut
Ruth Sloane
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
When Ruth Sloane was com
missioned by Theater
Charlotte to write a play
about the old Brooklyn neigh
borhood, she got excited right
away.
Even before an Arts and
Science Council grant was
approved for the project, she
started working.
“I began treading water
before it was definitely on go,”
said Sloane, a writer and
director who grew up in the
Greenville community. “It has
sprouted its own wings and
begun to fly.”
Sloane said her experiences
in Greenville, which like
Brooklyn was razed during
urban renewal helped her
write “The Second City.”
“Coming from a community
that had been torn down, I
can empathize with a commu
nity that had been tom down,”
she said.
“The Second City” tells the
story of a community of
African Americans which
flourished and died in
Charlotte’s Second Ward, the
uptown area south of Trade
Street and east of Tryon.
Sloane’s work is a choreopo-
em, telling the story through
music, song and dance, with
words based on interviews
with former Brooklyn resi
dents. She drew from the
works of Rose Leary Love,
who taught and lived in
Brooklyn, and produced the
memoirs being published this
week by the
Charlotte/Mecklenburg Public
Library.
Love is quoted in Sloane’s
work, which includes Love’s
account of a community effort
to corral a wayward goat
named Billy.
Animals, including horses,
were common in a community
which became a self-sustain
ing home to more than 7,000
people at its zenith, people
who lived in some of the finest
homes and ran flourishing
businesses and professional
offices.
Sloane’s work includes
accounts of the original Queen
City Classics, high school foot
ball games between
Brooklyn’s Second Ward High
and rival upstart West
Charlotte.
There’s also the re-enact
ment of the disastrous 1917
fire which destroyed more
than 40 homes and several
businesses.
“It took me eight months,”
Sloane said. “Truth of the
matter is, it would have been
nice to have had a year,” She
spent six months on research
and two months writing.
The play opens Feb. 29 at
Theater Charlotte with a
nine-member cast under the
direction of Barbara Howse-
Meadows. Portions will be
performed Friday during the
reception unveiling Love’s
memoirs, “Plum Thickets and
Field Daisies.”
Sloane has done other work
in the choreopoem format,
including “Peace is a Woman’s
Issue” for the Committee for
International Womans Day in
1982 and “Bridges to Insight”
back in 1977.
She did a play about Ramses
for the African-American
Children’s Theater and her
direction credits include a pro
duction of “Colored Girls” at
UNC Charlotte and
Continued from page 1A
Complaints about the
November election delayed
the seating of a nearly com
pletely new board of directors.
Only Alexander and first vice
president Melvin Alston of
Greensboro remain, and Hoyle
changed positions.
A major item on the state
chapter’s agenda is review of
CORRECTIONS
A story in the Feb. 15 Post on
the movie “Once Upon A Time
When We Were Colored” incor
rectly identified Paula
Williams as president of the
Black Media Association and
host of a program on Time
Warner cable that featured
Phylicia Rashad as a guest,
Mary Wilson and Kelly
Alexander hosted the program.
with Williams as executive
producer and director. A group
of local businesses, in coopera
tion with the Black Media
Association, sponsored
Rashad’s visit.
• A story on Fighting Back
Cluster One Resource Center
on Feb. 15 incorrectly identi
fied Maceo Mayo and Winston
Lassiter. They work for the
Drug Education Center.
Charleston’s Spoleto Festival.
Sloanee was a producer at
WTVI for seven years. She
regularly teaches playwriting
in the public schools under the
auspices of the Children’s
Theater.
“I’m always teaching,” she
said.
Sloane praised Theater
Charlotte for its vision.
“It was good for the theater
to have that vision, to realize
the work had to be done,” she
said. “It has sprouted its own
wings and begun to build a
momentum that’s unimagin
able.
“I found it to be one of the
most enriching and rewarding
projects to have been given
the honor of writing this play.
It was a joy working on it, to
have a chance to work on folk
culture and be able to pass
along this culture to our chil
dren.”
..-'A CELEBRATION OF
Charlotte’s Oldest
African American Community, Brooklyn
Theatre Chamotte presents “The Second City”
■s>t\
FEBifi
iTTEN BY Ruth Sloane
:p by Barbara Howse-Meadows
ARCH 2 AT 8 p.M. March 3 at 2:30’'
All tickets ‘8,00
Underwritten by
Royal Insurance
cytllATREW^Alil-O'ITE
501 Queens Road
For More information, call 334-9128, 10 a.m, - 4 p.m. weekdays
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NAACP’s new board
the proposed state budget,
which was approved in
December by the previous
board. That review was sup
posed to take place Feb. 3.
In addition to Woodard and
Hoyle, Henry Pickett, presi
dent of the Raleigh/Apex
chapter, was elected third vice
president and Gina Pettis-
Dean of Charlotte was elected
youth advisor.
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