October 10, 2008

Great Black Mountain College article

Check out this really great article about Black Mountain College, Legacy of NC's Black Mountain College Continues.

Here's an excerpt:

Black Mountain College opened its doors in Asheville in 1933, testing limits in
education, art and society as students and faculty worked together to cultivate
everything from minds to food. There were no bells that rang when classes ended.
Students didn’t get report cards with As or Fs.

“Students had to take charge of their own education and that was totally the opposite of most colleges in that era,” Allen said.

It was founded by classics professor John Andrew Rice, who had been fired from Rollins College in Florida. He took several colleagues and some promising students with him and opened the school.

At first, the entire campus was inside a YMCA building. Later the faculty and students built cabins on a farm that everyone worked on. People living in the area thought “it was a nest of communist and homosexuals,” said alumnus and author Michael Rumaker.

At a time when racial segregation was the law, two blacks taught there in 1945, and by 1947, five black students were enrolled.

There are constantly events in Asheville related to Black Mountain College. Find out details at the Black Mountain College Museum Web site.

2 comments:

Don Mak said...

The school I grew up next to in Olympia Washington was modeled after that school: Evergreen State College. Funny, I didn't know that until after I moved here.

Kelly said...

my aunt went to evergreen! I considered going to college there, or at least in wa state, but UNC Asheville was similar enough to evergreen and a lot cheaper for me :)