BE on Edgewood Open House Attracts Hundreds

Hundreds of visitors streamed through the BE on Edgewood Complex during a public open house held from January 17 to 20, starting with the opening of the One Contemporary Art Gallery on Friday evening and culminating with the annual MLK Day Parade on Monday, Jan. 20.

BE on Edgewood is a historic preservation site in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn District, just a block from Ebenezer Baptist Church and the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Located at 395 Edgewood Ave. SE, the facility has now been fully restored and repurposed to serve as a community center, performance venue, art gallery and headquarters of the National Center for Race Amity.

The National Center for Race Amity unveiled the “Icons of Race Amity” exhibit, a collection of artworks by Boston-based artist Pamela Chatterton Purdy that illustrates and celebrates the stories of people who exemplified a powerful commitment to interracial friendship in pursuit of social justice.

Nearly 1,000 people attended the opening of the One Contemporary Gallery on Friday evening. Located in the expansive upper level of BE on Edgewood, the Black-owned gallery focuses on emerging and contemporary African-American artists, most with personal connections to the city of Atlanta.

On Sunday, Atlanta-based documentary film makers hosted screenings and discussions of two films:

City of Kings, a visual and oral story of how graffiti writing in Atlanta began, how it grew up, where it is today, and its place in the larger global graffiti community, written and directed by William Feagins, Jr.
Five Stories, a documentary film created by Shoccara Marcus and Tamara Irving, two Atlanta-born Black women dancers-turned-filmmakers, that chronicles the origins and struggles of five trailblazers of Black dance in Atlanta: Valjeanne Grigsby, Barbara Sullivan, Billie Gaither, Norma Bell Mitchell and Spelman College’s Children Dance Program.

On Sunday evening, Eric Dozier presented a rousing and moving Gospel Workshop to a packed audience in the BE on Edgewood performance space.