Just like Asheville, when I stepped out of my car, took a breath, shook off the four hours of driving and looked around.. I fell in love with the city pretty much immediately. I parked at one end of Tryon St, which is one of two main streets in Charlotte – the other being Trade St. Tryon and Trade Sts were both crucial Indian trails, and when the white men moved in they of course used the same well established trade routes, and now the city has these two intersecting trade routes as their two main roads. I knew that the Visitor Center (they are INVALUABLE and I highly recommend you utilise them if you do a trip around the States) wouldn’t open until midday, as it was Sunday and Father’s Day to boot (happy Father’s Day Dad!), so I proceeded to lace up my new walking shoes, and get a feel for the city.
The city is divided into four wards, and I’ve decided Fourth Ward is where I would move to, if I were to move to Charlotte. It is just gorgeous. Lovely greenery, big park complete with curious and not at all scared squirrels.. friendly people, beautiful genteel houses, lovely meandering walkways between apartment complexes.. and a gorgeous gushing fountain at the entrance to the main park. To have so much greenery in the middle of a major city makes such a difference. No concrete jungle vibe here!
I got to the Visitor’s Center and they were at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest I should do next, as I had walked thoroughly around the city for about three hours at this point, and had seen literally all the suggested sites on their ‘walking trail’ map, which include historical areas and more modern business areas as well. The old cemetery was beautiful; I really do enjoy my cemeteries. But so were the more modern areas of town – the ‘walkway of arts’ (or whatever it was called) was very modern and funky and inspiring. If only I had an artistic bone in my body…
I wound down for the day with a drive through the outskirts of Charlotte, and quickly recognized that Myers Park must be the upmarket, or ritzy even, area of town. When you notice that someone’s front lawn is larger than most people’s house, and everything is pristinely manicured and trimmed and hedged… it’s a bit of a tip-off you’re in Snootsville. Myself, I preferred the quaint charm of Fourth Ward. The lavish (and very obvious) wealth in Myers Park isn’t really my thing. I liked the open verandahs with built-in ceiling fans, rocking chairs, and bird feeders in Fourth Ward.
I went to Mint Museum of Art and checked out a few exhibits – the special exhibit that was on at the moment was the Fantasies, Fairytales and Fear exhibit.. it was very clever. Some of the art was very evocative and indeed induced a feeling of fear or at the very least, anxiety and apprehension. I was convinced at one point that someone was going to leap out at me from around a corner and scare the beejeesus out of me. Didn’t happen. Thank god. I probably would’ve been all flailing arms and screaming. There was an exhibit on ‘glass, wood, metal’ and a few other things thrown in, that was very, very good. After finishing absorbing as much culture as possible from this museum, I headed down the street, to the Levine Museum of the New South.
The Levine is designed to educate people as to how the South became the New South, and what the Old South was like in a small taste. It is a step by step exhibit, that is prefaced by a short film on the evolution of Charlotte as a city, and it takes us from the era of slavery through each decade, showing things like what a slave’s cottage looked like – actual to-scale models with actual bedding and utensils and OH!
I have just remembered something I have been meaning to tell y'all since I left Franklin! I have discovered the origin of the saying “goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite”. Well the bed bugs one is obvious, but it really refers to bugs and beetles of any description, because mattresses were often made from straw back in the 1900’s and 1800’s, and you had to shake out your mattress and watch all these bugs fall to the floor before you climbed into bed. And the ‘sleep tight’… comes from rope beds. You know our slat beds? Well these beds have rope instead of slats, and every now and then, the rope would loosen, so you would go to the end of the bed, and using a specially made rope-tightening tool, you would tighten the rope in your bed, to provide firm, not sagging, support, on which to lay your bug-filled mattress. Aren’t you happy you live in the 21st Century??
Back to the Levine Museum. So it takes you era by era through everything that’s happening in the New South (“New” once slavery was abolished when the federal forces “Yankees” won the Civil War), and the evolution of Charlotte as a city and an economy… things like Roosevelt’s visit to Charlotte whereby he talks about ensuring the cotton farmers receive at least 10c for their crop instead of the abysmal 5c the market had plummeted to when there was a huge oversupply of cotton.. and then of course, the reasons that led to segregation of white and ‘coloreds’. Reading all about it.. listening to recorded TV interviews (they have areas where you can perch and push a button to watch and listen an interview on a TV) from some of the first black men and women who protested against segregation, who started the ‘sit in’ movement.. I couldn’t help but get all choked up. Thinking about the injustice of such utter discrimination against a group of people simply because their skin was darker. The atrocities committed.. the Klu Klux Klan.. and how they with their propaganda had actually managed to convince the North that blacks were rampantly coming into white people’s homes and raping their women and stealing their livelihoods, and that the KKK were ‘knights on white steeds coming to the rescue…’ just blood-chilling. I cannot recommend highly enough, that if you are in Charlotte, that you go to the Levine Museum. It helps put a lot of the jigsaw puzzle together to understand why things were the way they were, and what happened to help change them.
One thing I did see in Charlotte that I must say I was in no way prepared for, was the Billy Graham Library. I had no idea who he was or what it was about, and I went because it was ranked highly on Trip Advisor’s list of things to do in Charlotte, and it was free admission. Good Lord. Ha! No pun intended. It was so evangelistic, I felt my skin practically crawling as I hurried out of there. I strongly, STRONGLY, recommend not going there if you a) aren’t staunch Christian and b) don’t like having religious propaganda shoved into you from every angle. The house that his family grew up in was interesting though, and incredibly well preserved – the same couches, same paint etc.. it was its own little museum to his upbringing.
My last night in Charlotte I was reading my book (oh so good..), having a beer and generally minding my own business, when I was harangued into joining the ‘long stay’ tenants (I was at an ‘extended stay Studio 6’.. you can stay for days, weeks, months.. forever..) who are like their own little family, and pretty soon we were discussing everything from racial tensions to religious beliefs; sexuality (we had three gay boys in our group – the black gay dude (Patrick??) was just the funniest dude I’ve met in a while) to the American Health Care System (or lack thereof), to what’s different in Australia. At ten o’clock I said “ok team I’m off for bed..” and got a chorus of “oh say WHAT?” (did I mention there were a few black women in our ragtag group?) and “noo! Staaay!” etcetera. Patricia even tried telling me it was only a one hour drive to Myrtle Beach, my next destination! Lies! All lies! Knowing full well it was a four hour drive, I said my goodbyes, and had a chuckle at how wonderful our little group was… we had black and white, both men and women, gay and straight and (I suspect) lesbian… religious and not religious.. I thought the next morning all we needed was to throw a few asians into the mix and you’ve got one of those terribly posed posters you see promoting equal opportunity workplaces. I suppose it really is testament to how far the South has come though, in integrating whites with blacks again, and the newfound tolerance of gay people made my heart all warm and fuzzy. We were just a bunch of friends, having a yarn about whatever came up. It was great, and it’s a memory I’m going to cherish after having been to the Levine Museum where I shed a few tears in the exhibit on segregation and the ‘sit ins’.
Chat soon,
M x
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