MISTAKEN IDENTITY BY PAT MORAN

MISTAKEN IDENTITY Mother recounts search for son during wrongful incarceration

BY PAT MORAN

For a moment it seemed as if Chanel SappYoung’s 24-year-old son Brenden Eans had simply disappeared. After being arrested at work on a recent Friday afternoon, Eans spent five days in a South Carolina jail, now his mom is recounting her harrowing search for answers while her son was the victim of a wrongful incarceration.

Arrested for crimes he did not commit, Eans had been transported to the Chester Detention Center in South Carolina by deputies from the Chester County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office, who had detained Eans at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s request, maintained they would not release Eans or transport him to Charlotte until CMPD extradited him.

Now a CMPD officer was telling Sapp-Young that the request might never come, because the department had no record of her son’s arrest. “I have no warrants in my system for him,” Sapp-Young remembers the officer telling her. “I don’t know why they have your son.”

Meanwhile, Brenden Eans was sleeping on the floor of an overcrowded cell in the midst of a highly infectious pandemic. His wrongful incarceration, based on a case of mistaken identity, would last five days.

Sapp-Young says her family’s ordeal began Friday, Aug. 7, at 8 p.m. Eans’ girlfriend Lanita Glenn called, nearly in hysterics. Eans, described by his mother as a mature young man who doesn’t drink, smoke or party, hadn’t come home. Glenn had tracked his iPhone to the Chester Detention Center. When she called there, they told her he was in custody but would give her no further information.

With Eans’ stepfather Richard Young at the wheel, Sapp-Young jumped into the car. They made the trip from their home in Winston-Salem to Eans’ Charlotte apartment to pick up Glenn, then crossed the state line to arrive at the detention center. SappYoung remembers it was after hours.

Speaking through an intercom beside the locked door, the family learned that because CMPD had asked the Chester County sheriff’ to pick up Eans, only CMPD could tell them why he was being held. The detention center was going to hold Sapp-Young’s son until CMPD came to get him, and they would not allow Eans a phone call because the Chester County Sheriff’s Department had not arrested him in the first place.

There was one piece of good news, if you could call that: Eans was scheduled to go before a Chester magistrate Saturday. The family went to a motel and came back the next morning, but there was no court date scheduled for Brenden.

“The story we were given was not true,” ChanelSapp says.

So, Chanel Sapp-Young, Richard Young and Glenn drove to CMPD headquarters in Uptown looking for answers. Chanel-Sapp approached a female officer in her squad car and asked her to look Eans’ name up. That’s when Sapp-Young learned the department had no record of a warrant issued for her son. He was trapped between a sheriff’s department in Chester that claimed they could hold Eans indefinitely until they heard from CMPD, and a police department that could find no record of his arrest.

The officer directed the family to go around the corner to the Mecklenburg County Detention Center on East 4th Street, Chanel-Sapp says. There they hit another wall, a deputy saying the department didn’t know anything about Eans.

Throughout this process, Sapp-Young had been keeping people abreast on social media, posting updates about her wrongfully arrested son. A complete stranger, a friend of Eans’ best friend’s mother, had obtained copies of the warrants issued for Eans through a bail bondsman they knew. They sent those copies to Sapp-Young, who produced them and showed them to the deputy. Finally, the story came out.

On Thursday, Aug. 6 at 11:50 a.m., an assailant damaged property at a University City storage facility, then assaulted a police officer before leading officers on a chase from which he eventually escaped.

Meanwhile Brenden Eans, who had graduated from UNC Charlotte in December, was working at Carolina Poly in Chester, where he is a mechanical engineer manager. Between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday, Chester County Sheriff’s deputies armed with warrants from Charlotte marched into the plant, handcuffed Eans and walked him out in front of his boss and co-workers. If they had stopped to ask anyone where Eans was at 11:50 a.m. on the previous day, Sapp-Young insists, the staff would have told the deputies that the suspect they currently had in custody had an ironclad alibi — he was at work. But the deputies didn’t ask.

“We knew that was not a good situation,” SappYoung says, “because [the police] thought that he actually beat up a police officer.”

By the time Sapp-Young and her family had finished talking with the deputy at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center, the Chester Detention Center had relented and allowed Eans to call his family. He had finally been told the charges against him, but he had no other information.

On Monday, the family talked to an attorney, who told them not to antagonize the police, to take down their social media posts and let the legal process play out.

“There was nothing we could do to get him out,” Sapp-Young says, recounting the lawyer’s advice. “No one was going to listen to us. [He] told us to be quiet.”

Sapp-Young did no such thing. Warrants in hand, she, Young and Glenn went back to Chester, where authorities had told them Eans would have another day in court before a magistrate. Once there they learned that, once again, Eans had no date scheduled. In Chester, Sapp-Young spoke to the arresting officer Corporal Beasley.

“Beasley told me, ‘I did my research. I know we have the right person. His height matches. His eye color matches,’” Sapp-Young says. The description was an African American with hazel to green eyes and a blondish sandy-colored beard and mustache, she recalls.

“Every Black man walking around today matches that description,” Sapp-Young maintains.

Then a friend contacted Sapp-Young and advised her to speak with Charlotte City Council member Braxton Winston. A call on Tuesday to Winston’s office provided Eans and his family a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

After telling her story to an assistant, SappYoung received a call from Demi Smith-Wright with the Mecklenburg sheriff’s office. Smith-Wright in turn referred Sapp-Young to CMPD detective Josh Gibson. Sapp-Young had gotten the direct number for the HR director at Carolina Poly, her son’s place of employment. She gave Gibson that number.

“A little while later [Gibson] calls me back and says, ‘You’re right. He was at work. We’re sorry. We’ll start the wheels in motion to get him released,’” Sapp-Young says, the relief in her voice audible.

After five days in jail, Eans was released. He came home Wednesday, Aug. 12, at 1 a.m. He confided to his mother that he had felt certain he was going to remain imprisoned in the Chester Detention Center indefinitely.

Later that morning, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden called Eans, who did not tell Sapp-Young all the details of the conversation, but described McFadden’s demeanor as deeply apologetic.

“Now the CMPD is another story,” Sapp-Young says. “The police department asked me to call them. But … we did not call them back because they kept saying, ‘The person who did this is still out there, and we still need to talk to Brenden about it.’ There is nothing he has to say about this crime.”

As of this writing, Sapp-Young’s son has had no subsequent contact with CMPD.

When Queen City Nerve contacted CMPD and asked about Eans’ wrongful incarceration and the family’s allegation that Eans was not able to make a phone call on Friday, the department issued this reply: “The CMPD Internal Affairs Bureau has launched an investigation to ensure the officers involved in the case followed department policy. Any questions concerning his stay in the detention center should be directed to Chester County authorities.”

Queen City Nerve also contacted the Chester County Sheriff’s Office. They replied with the following statement: “The Chester County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on August 7, 2020 and was requested to arrest Brenden Eans at a location in Chester County, pursuant to an arrest warrant from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

“Chester Sheriff’s Deputies confirmed the warrant was active in [the National Crime Information Center database]. As a result of the active warrant confirmation, Deputies took Eans into custody, and he was housed at the Chester County Detention Center until picked up by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on August 11, 2020.”

Sapp-Young says her son is not the demonstrative type, but a mother knows when her child has been traumatized. She feels that if this case of mistaken identity and wrongful incarceration could happen to her straight-arrow son, it could happen to countless other young Black men.

“Some people say it was only five days, but it was five days of his freedom,” she says.

PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM

UNION DIVIDED Indian Trail man arrested for hate crime against Black farmer

BY RYAN PITKIN

When Marjorie Jamison drove to Indian Trail in Union County on June 13 to visit family friend Bernard Singleton’s new farm, she expected a relaxing day away from the stresses of city life and quarantine, not to be the target of a hate crime.

Jamison was picking blueberries at Singleton’s Nebedaye Farms with her family — her husband, also named Bernard, and their 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter — when a man drove up on a motorcycle, yelled the N-word at the group, revved his engine loudly, then drove off.

Jamison had been too engrossed in her task to notice, but once she regrouped with her husband, he confirmed what had happened, as did another Black woman who was there with her own son.

“I thought that’s what I heard but I didn’t want to think that’s what it was,” the woman told Jamison.

The incident was a wake-up call for the mother of two.

“I was really kind of surprised that that happened, because I had never experienced anything like that so blatantly in my face,” Jamison said.

According to Singleton and multiple other people that Queen City Nerve spoke with who have experienced harassment while visiting the farm, similar incidents have become all-too-common there, only increasing as discussions around racial injustice have picked up across the country. Singleton stated that young men on four-wheelers and in pickup trucks waving Confederate flags have driven by many times and yelled similar things as the man on the motorcycle, while others have been caught roaming the property late at night only to claim they ran out of gas before getting back in their cars and driving off.

While there’s not much Singleton can do except arm himself and equip cameras in an attempt to identify passersby who accost him and his visitors, he is now taking legal action against a neighbor who he said has harassed him for months.

According to Singleton, 62-year-old Frank

Rohrback, who lives diagonally across the in late May, Rohrback became more belligerent. The “It’s a self-sustaining school. What we have on intersection of Mill Grove Road and N.C. Highway neighbor began flying a Confederate flag, writing our own is not dependent on people who do not 218 where Nebedaye Farms is located, has fired down license plate numbers of the farm’s visitors, give a fuck about us,” he said. “There was a debt but shots over the farm, repeatedly yelled the N-word and shooting his gun in the air while staring across they aren’t going to pay us; we know that.” at Singleton and his visitors, and threatened to kill the intersection at the farm. He sees farming as a path to self-sustainability three people there, including Singleton. Singleton responded by firing off his own guns, for African-Americans, and hopes to work with

On July 1, Union County Sheriff’s deputies though that resulted in calls to the police. underserved youth and unemployed adults in arrested Rohrback and charged him with ethnic “This is Union County. Everybody shoots around Charlotte. He pointed out that the traumatic history intimidation. He is scheduled to appear in court here. When the week ends it’s like Fourth of July,” he of slavery has kept many away from the industry, on Sept. 25. Attempts to reach Rohrback were said. “But a black man with a gun causes a problem. and quoted Leah Penniman, founder of Soul Fire unsuccessful. I’m the only person who ever had the police called Farm and author of Farming While Black, who

Ethnic intimidation is a misdemeanor in North on him for gunshots.” said, “The land was the scene of the crime, not the Carolina and carries a maximum 120-day sentence. No charges were filed against Singleton for criminal.” While the charge was part of a hate-crime bill that those incidents. A look at Rohrback’s record shows “We left the land because of the intimidation,” passed in 1991, the state still lacks a hate-crime law he was arrested on March 1 for misuse of 911 and Singleton said. “And if we allow this to continue unchecked with what [Rohrback] is doing, we’ll be going through the same cycle 100 years later. We really have to address that.” Though Jamison’s young children weren’t aware of what had happened on June 13, the incident stuck with her well after she left the farm. Her family stopped at Colonel Francis Beatty Park in Matthews on the way home and she found herself wondering how many white people around her felt the same way as the man on the motorcycle. “At the time I was thinking, how is it that someone has the hatred in them to feel the need to express something like that — to take the time out of your day, your moment, your drive and yell that out at a few Black people who were minding their business?” she said. “I just felt really sad, for myself and the kids, but even for that person and our country. We don’t have to be that way, BERNARD SINGLETON ON NEBEDAYE FAMRS IN INDIAN TRAIL PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN we could be so much better, there’s just systemic things in place that prevent us from getting to that resisting arrest, then arrested point.” that applies to race- or religion-based felonies, such again on April 10 for failure to appear in court. Singleton said he plans to continue hosting as when a white man murdered three of his Muslim After moving to Charlotte in 2011, Singleton regular events at Nebedaye Farms despite the neighbors execution style inside their Chapel Hill and his daughter turned a NoDa Storage unit into harassment. He recently hosted the staff of Leah & condominium in 2015. a studio apartment and lived there until they were Louise for a field trip of sorts, and on another day

Singleton said he refuses to be bullied off of the able to find more appropriate housing. Singleton threw an all-day rice-harvesting party that ended property, which he subleases from Carolina Farm launched Bennu Gardens in 2014 with nothing with a Gullah-style meal, cooked mostly with Trust alongside Serendipity Flowers and Crown Town but some seeds he had bought from food stamps. ingredients grown right there on the farm. Compost, all part of the Mill Grove Farm Co-Op. He has since expanded the operation into three As for Rohrback, who he said has quieted down

“These are things that happened way back locations. He began farming the land at Mill Grove since his July 1 arrest, Singleton won’t back down when, and while we’re focusing on other things, in spring 2019 with a focus on harvesting moringa, from what he believes. that’s still happening here in Union County,” a superfood grown in Africa and Asia that Singleton “We actually are getting a sign out here that Singleton said of the recent hate crimes when we has been learning to grow successfully in the says Black Farms Matter and I know that’s going to visited after Rohrback’s arrest. “People wonder the Charlotte area over the last three years. stir some shit up,” he said, laughing loudly. “I have to reason why there’s not many Black farmers, because He has plans in the coming months to build a be ready for that. I have to be the one to stand my this type of shit. It ain’t going down like that this “sustainability schoolhouse” on the property to ground. I ain’t going nowhere.” time.” help teach agricultural entrepreneurship, known

Singleton recalled that after Black Lives Matter as agripreneurship — how to grow, process and RPITKIN@QCNERVE.COM protests began in Charlotte and across the country preserve food, along with how to market a business.

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE guidance ever, but they’re still operating. I don’t get it. I don’t understand.” light bill with zero income for that long?” On the latest episode of Queen City Nerve’s bars are restricted from onsite alcohol sales and onsite consumption under the Governor’s Order.” According to North Carolina ABC Commission Nooze Hounds podcast, DeLoach told us that to-go Erin Bean, special agent and spokesperson for the THE BOOZE SERVICE BLUES guidance on Executive Order 141 (Phase 2), an establishment can remain open if it is not deemed to be “principally engaged in the business of selling beer sales and donations have kept her business afloat when there are not many other options for her to consider. North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE) division, told us that, despite what CMPD’s ABC officers have been telling business CMPD, ALE on different pages regarding alcohol alcoholic beverages for onsite consumption.” Examples of these establishments include many breweries, distilleries, bottle shops and wine shops. Jamie Starks, owner of Tommy’s Pub, posted on Facebook the same day stating that CMPD ABC officers told him he had to shut down completely owners, off-premise sales such as beer and wine to go is still allowed under the governor’s orders. “While on-premise consumption has been enforcement during Bars and taprooms are allowed to be open at those and cease the sale of to-go beers that had helped restricted, off-premise sales of beer and/or wine COVID-19 establishments, as long as they follow Mecklenburg him survive along with merchandise sales and other have been permitted throughout the Governor’s County guidelines for gathering. fundraisers. Like Briggs, Starks reached out to the Executive Orders,” Bean wrote in an email. “A BY RYAN PITKIN Establishments can also remain open if their special agent overseeing the Harrisburg district for business holding an on-premise (beer or wine) pre-COVID operations typically included service of ALE, who reassured him that to-go beer and wine permit allows the retail sale of beer/wine for

Officers with CMPD’s Alcohol Beverage Control food and drink, and they were in full compliance sales were completely fine. consumption on the premises and the retail sale Unit visited more than 50 private bars on Thursday, with Phase 2 guidelines, including operating at 50% “This is not the normal thing to tell a business of beer/wine to-go in the manufacturers original Aug. 20, to clarify the guidelines concerning onsite capacity. and it is very confusing,” the agent wrote to Starks sealed container for off-premise consumption (as alcohol sales, consumption and enforcement during “Any restaurant that is open and serving alcohol in an email. long as the purchaser has a valid ID, is over 21 years the COVID-19 pandemic, but many owners were should have an open kitchen,” writes the ABC In a Facebook post from Aug. 23, Starks echoed old, and is not intoxicated).” only left more confused about guidelines after guidance. “Food from the restaurant must be available Briggs’ sentiments by pointing out the hypocrisy in At a press conference on Aug. 21, CMPD Deputy officers told them things that conflicted with what at all times that alcoholic beverages are being served.” how the governor’s orders were being enforced. Chief Jeff Estes said the department is working “to state officials have said. ensure we have a good message for all of our

According to Lezlie Briggs, co-owner of business owners and that we’re saying the same 1501 South Mint in the Wilmore neighborhood, thing.” a CMPD ABC officer told her on Aug. 20 that she The rules as they stand now will remain is not allowed to have people consuming alcohol in place until at least Sept. 11, when Cooper’s on the property, which has been a consistent latest Phase 2 extension is set to expire. He’s rule for private bars and clubs that do not offer expected to make an announcement earlier food service since Phase 2 of Gov. Cooper’s plan that week declaring any new changes to the to reopen the state began on May 22. orders.

Briggs does have a permanent food truck As for private bar owners like Briggs and set up outside of her establishment that she Starks, they plan to move forward under the believed counted as a kitchen, but was told guidance of state officials who have assured it did not. Briggs said the CMPD officer also them that the to-go sales they’ve been making told her the business couldn’t operate in any to scrounge up even a bit of income are legal. capacity, not even to sell beer or wine to go, and Briggs closed her business on Aug. 21 to would have to close down completely. That’s make a plan for how to move forward “for the where those who are enforcing the rules locally rest of however many weeks or months we’ll be split ways with state officials who are handing operating under this order,” but would have to them down. once again let go many of the employees she

On the morning after the visit from CMPD, brought back under the impression that the Briggs called the ALE special agent in charge of 1501 SOUTH MINT IN WILMORE WAS TOLD THEY WOULD HAVE TO SHUT DOWN. PHOTO BY RORI PRODUCTION sales from her permanent food truck meant she the Harrisburg district that covers Mecklenburg could operate like many other restaurants and County and was told that the business wouldn’t The guidance does not address the issue around “This is arguably a demographic issue, based on bars serving food under Phase 2. have to shut down or surrender its license, as she the sale of beer and wine to go. class/wealth. Hell, some have argued ageism and “It’s just unfortunate because it puts us in was told just a matter of hours before. Owners at Hattie’s Tap & Tavern and Tommy’s racism, too. I don’t disagree,” he wrote. “Just look a really interesting situation when you look at

“It’s one of those things where they’re enforcing Pub made social media posts stating that they were at which drinking establishments and businesses our staff,” she said. “When you look at the lack of it differently,” Briggs said. “We have counterparts told things similar to what Briggs heard. are allowed to be open (and their location) vs. unemployment, it’s just unfortunate for all these who had to shut down last week, ‘private bars and “ALE is now stopping by and telling Private Clubs what is closed to working class and lower income private bars who have been operating, who hired clubs’ also applies to golf courses, also applies to they aren’t allowed to sell to go beer and that we are individuals and families?” new staff, to now go back and have to tell their some breweries, however, it’s just depending on supposed to be 100% closed, wrote Jackie DeLoach, Queen City Nerve reached out to CMPD about staff, ‘Oh by the way, I’m going to have let you go who your officer is, it’s going to determine how it owner of Hattie’s, in a Facebook post on Aug. 20. the alcohol enforcement issue, and the department temporarily, because we cant even operate in our gets enforced … Then you have restaurants like Ink “September will be 6 months closed. How the hell sent a statement reading, “Attorneys with the State full capacity. It’s unfortunate.” N Ivy who are violating every restaurant rule and do they expect us to make money and pay the damn ABC Commission have advised the CMPD that private

RPITKIN@QCNERVE.COM

A BOLD NEW CAMPAIGN Black philanthropists launch storytelling initiative to give voice to the voiceless

BY BRIANNA MONROE

According to Valaida Fullwood, co-founder of the New Generation of African American Philanthropists, sharing narratives is vital to black philosophy, and the most traditional way of doing so is through spoken word.

“When we were brought here through slavery we lost everything, we kept our history through storytelling,” Fullwood says.

Throughout history, Black people have utilized the arts as a way to share their narratives and inspire change. For example, “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday brought awareness to the lynchings that were taking place against the Black community during that time.

It’s a little known fact that August is Black Philanthropy Month, created in 2011 by the African Women’s Development Fund as a global celebration and concerted campaign to elevate African-descent giving.

While the New Generation of African American Philanthropists (NGAAP), a local “giving circle” that helps pool charitable funds giving back to the community, commemorates Black Philanthropy Month each year with an observance, this year they are taking things further.

The NGAAP is using Black Philanthropy Month 2020 as a launch pad for its new BeBOLD campaign, a long-term project devoted to building Black leadership and the voices of disregarded groups by utilizing a series of storytelling projects, including microstories such as a new poem from renowned Charlotte spoken-word poet Quentin Talley, founder of OnQ Productions, that we’re premiering in this paper and on our website.

The poem can be viewed on page 17, or listen to Talley perform it at qcnerve.com.

Focusing on the narrative initiative, the BeBOLD project has released a series of microstories throughout August, ranging from Hope Vibes executive director Adrienne Threatt’s tribute to her father, to Fullwood’s celebration of her Aunt Dora.

The NGAAP is encouraging people to share their own microstories on social media with the hashtag #BPM2020CLT, re ecting on a person in their own life who has been a source of strength and inspiration, and who represents what it means to be BOLD in times of adversity.

The group will continue releasing stories in the countdown to #CLTGivesBlack on Aug. 28, a community-wide day of giving focused on Blackled, Black-bene ting nonpro t organizations. The group plans to announce a large grant award on that day, as well.

Fullwood and Talley have partnered on several projects, including a book that Fullwood wrote that includes one of Talley’s past pieces, and she worked with Talley on the construction of his new original piece made just for this campaign. The piece is titled “Bold Black Love Lives Here.”

Fullwood explains that after working with the multi-talented Talley on previous works she thought it might be time for another poem, and describes his original new work for BeBOLD as “a powerful nod to the past while looking forward to ask how current generations will a rm Black lives, strengthen Black-led, Black-bene ting organizations, and advance racial justice.”

Talley says he was inspired to work with the BeBOLD campaign because he has always been a fan of Fullwood work and the giving circle project. He goes on to explain that the best way for him to contribute to this cause would be through his poetry.

“I may not have the funds, but I do have the talent,” he says.

Talley believes poetry and the arts in general

ADRIENNE THREATT HOLDS A PICTURE OF HER FATHER, WHOM SHE HONORED IN A BEBOLD POST. COURTESY OF NEW GENERATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILANTHROPISTS

have a strong in uence on Black philosophy and the inspiration for change. He cites several historic poets, such as Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, whose work has been iconic in raising awareness for inspiring action against the injustices that African Americans face in America.

“Poetry has always moved the needle when it comes to social justice and making change,” he says.

He adds that, in his new poem, he wants to convey that “there is nothing wrong with having bold Black love.” He goes further to explain that “Black love comes in all forms,” including philanthropic, that are “shared in our stories that we pass down through history.”

Originally created by Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland and the Pan-African Women’s Philanthropy Network (PAWPNet), Black Philanthropy Month is an international movement devoted to the observance of Black philanthropy and giving in all forms. The celebratory month was  rst launched in 2011 to acknowledge the United Nations Year and Decade of People of African Descent.

The goal of Black Philanthropy Month is to inform, involve, inspire and invest in Black philanthropic leadership and to strengthen

African-American and African-descent giving in all its forms, for the bene t of Black communities, organizations, and lives, according to its o cial website. Each year features a new concept, with this year’s theme being “Foresight 20/20.”

Yétundé Olagbaju, an artist from Oakland,

California, explains how she views the theme and used it as inspiration for the o cial artwork she created for this year’s celebration.

“When I think of ‘foresight’ I think of preparedness, exchange, knowledge of self, and the community that supports us all in thriving,”

Olagbaju says.

To commemorate #BPM2020CLT, NGAAP is spearheading a series of events and funding opportunities, in partnership with community collaborators including SHARE Charlotte, My

Brother’s Keeper Charlotte-Mecklenburg,

National PanHellenic Council-Charlotte Chapter, and YMCA of Greater Charlotte.

They’ve even gotten the support of Mayor Vi

Lyles, who released a statement of recognition in which she pointed out that Charlotte is just the second city to o cially proclaim August as Black Philanthropy Month. “I want to encourage everyone to meet and support black philanthropists,” Lyles wrote. The NGAAP describes Black philanthropy as “the backbone of communities,” as Blackled organizations house the deep knowledge, relationships, and trust necessary to promote and maintain well-being and survival. These organizations face constant barriers to retrieving philanthropic resources that are essential to sustainability, growth and power. Nationally, less than 2% of funding by the largest country’s largest foundations is set aside speci cally for Black communities.

According to the NGAAP, “Patterns of philanthropic under-investment and racial bias, both conscious and unconscious, serve to undermine the operations and capacity of Black-led organizations.”

Due to severe underfunding and inconsistencies in resources, Black-led organizations as a whole are dealing with major barriers in managing operations and sustaining their missions. Furthermore, these organizations endure serious hurdles as it pertains to collaboration, innovation, and advocacy, which signi es the need for Black philanthropy and circular giving.

The second half of BeBOLD stands for Black Organizations Leading Di erently, and the campaign is devoted to building and encouraging Black-led organizations to lead di erently and to create di erent and fair outcomes for Charlotte’s Black residents as well as the growing spectrum of oppressed communities and communities of color to result in a bene t to all of Charlotte.

The campaign’s focus is not just to bene t Blackled organizations and Black communities but also to aid marginalized groups and create major changes in Charlotte’s nonpro t and philanthropic landscape.

The NGAAP believes that “by elevating and strengthening Black leadership and voices of groups that historically have been marginalized, we can make strides in de-centering Whiteness and ultimately dismantling White supremacist ideology that has dominated Southern culture and sustained

institutions and structures that perpetuate distrust, oppression, inequity, and injustice.” According to leaders with the NGAAP, the group will accomplish the goals of the BeBOLD project by employing four major initiatives: “to increase funding for general operations and for multiple years; narratives to amplify fresh voices, authentic framing and powerful storytelling; networks to foster new relationships, bridging and matchmaking community resources; and leadership to cultivate visible, e ective leadership on racial equality.”

To wrap up the  nal events of Black Philanthropy

KNIGHT FOUNDATION’S CHARLES THOMAS HONORED HIS MOTHER (ABOVE). P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F N G A A P

Month and segue into the BeBOLD campaign, the NGAAP will host a virtual workshop devoted to underrepresented voices to help develop leaders and leadership skills. The workshop, titled “The Power of the Collective,” will feature Howard Hill and Orsella Hughes of the Prosperity Foundation, Mark Lewis of the Poise Foundation, and Lyord Watson Jr. of the Penny Foundation.

Learn more at tinyurl.com/PowerOfCollective.

According to the Association of Black Foundation Executives, “Black social change leaders and Blackled institutions have played vital roles in almost every major movement in this country, from the abolition of slavery through today.”

It just takes the willingness to Be BOLD.

VALAIDA FULLWOOD (LEFT) HONORED HER AUNT DORA PHOTO COURTESY OF NGAAP

BOLD BLACK LOVE LIVED HERE

As a new future is upon us This present moment Calls for courage Like John Lewis To Sit in de ance Like Rosa Parks Lift our Voice Like Robeson Lean into Truth Like Mary Lou Become a beacon of Freedom Like Harriet Carry power In your posture Like the ancestors Who knew They’d Guide Our path With the torch They passed to You. Lighting a  re Under our foots to move This moment is ours if you so choose The mission is to show and prove Be like the stories

BY QUENTIN “Q” TALLEY

of bold. For soon the young will become, the old

And the elders will one day become you. Time a wasting And our ancestors

Ain’t raise no fools. time is nigh To raise new

Leaders of community Intact with the tools To build unity Continuing legacy By leaving Trust

funding a new generation of African American philanthropists Disrupting fear

Do it for the culture we hold dear. Now the future

will know Only the stories of Bold Black Love lived here.

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

OFFSTAGE AND BEHIND THE SCENES Charlotte’s performing arts scene faces up to adversity and diversity in a dual crisis

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

Performing arts in Charlotte have been hit hard, perhaps as hard as any industry during the COVID-19 pandemic — halted in place and put on hold with little options for adaptations. Chip Decker, longtime artistic director at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, has taken this sort of punch before. Twice in the past five years he has seen new venues for his company swept out from under his feet.

And now this.

“Seeing the thing you have sacrificed so much for be on the brink of disappearing, despite all of your best efforts, really quite sucks,” Decker observes. “Our business is dependent on lots of people gathering in small spaces — not the best operating model during a pandemic.”

Nor is gathering lots of people in big spaces. Charlotte Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty at Knight Theater and a three-day Women in Jazz fest at Stage Door Theater were among the first events to be canceled in March. Charlotte Symphony’s concert at Belk Theater and the Jewish Playwriting Contest at Shalom Park quickly followed.

Audiences have never seen the sets for Theatre Charlotte’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Children’s Theatre’s Dragons Love Tacos. Pieces of scenery pieces were deserted onstage at their Queens Road and ImaginOn locations, respectively. CPCC Summer Theatre never got off its feet this year, and when we checked in with Blumenthal Performing Arts last month, president Tom Gabbard told us that more than 300 events had already been canceled.

Even the tiny Warehouse Performing Arts Center up in Cornelius has seen its storefront operation come to a halt.

“A good portion of our mission and aesthetic was bound up in the intimacy of the venue, the ability for small audiences to engage very closely with the dramatic world immediately before them,” says WPAC president Marla Brown. “We can’t do that. Social distancing at WPAC would mean one audience member watching a monologue.”

Unlike Brown, who suspended efforts to stage live performances, Decker has raged against the dying of the spotlights. Actor’s Theatre lost three productions from its 31st season and now expects to lose all of Season 32. They’ve had to postpone their nuVoices Play Festival and the follow-up to last summer’s Midsummer Nights @ Queens production, presumably a Shakespearean comedy.

An outdoor revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fell through, compounding Decker’s woes, along with outdoor events planned at Freedom Park and a nearby Dilworth vacant lot at the intersection of Scott Avenue and East Boulevard. Charlotte Symphony was no less elaborate in its planning, seeing a three-week festival of concerts scheduled this month at Queens University, Knight Theater, Belk Theater, and Triple C Brewing Company dribble down the drain.

“It takes months of planning to get a show up, and one 30-second COVID announcement to derail it,” says Decker, “and to the layperson, that can come off as nothing has been done.”

Without any income from tickets and subscriptions to nourish them, hibernation is a more viable strategy at WPAC.

“The ironic ‘good news’ is that no artists made their living at WPAC, so the company is not seriously damaged economically,” Brown reports. “We have always been poor, relying on MacGyver theatre tactics and the wonderful talent pool of Metrolina to make solid shows on a dime. We will be back.”

One size does not fit all when it comes to financial impact. The image of poor ragtag artists doesn’t fit Blumenthal Performing Arts operations, nor do Charlotte Symphony, Opera Carolina, Theatre Charlotte, Children’s Theatre, Charlotte Ballet, or Actor’s Theatre fit the same WPAC storefront template.

All of these companies have salaried employees.

THEATRE CHARLOTTE’S ‘CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF’ SET HAS SAT EMPTY SINCE MARCH PHOTO BY TIM PARATI/THEATRE CHARLOTTE

All applied — and received — funding from the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Payroll Protection Program (PPP), totaling upwards of $3 million.

“We received a PPP loan from SBA which covered staff salaries through June,” says Ron Law, who was slated to retire on June 30 but has signed on for another season as Theatre Charlotte’s executive director at the request of the board. “We have used up our cash reserves, but we have been able to generate revenue from an online web-a-thon and other asks. Many of those holding tickets for the two canceled main stage productions made their ticket purchases a donation to TC.”

Under COVID conditions, Theatre Charlotte has been able to achieve the improbable. Weather permitting, they’ve presented Grand Nights for Singing: The Parking Lot Performances on Friday Nights. Their audiences, capped at 25, are socially distanced, as are their singers.

Audience members bring their own snacks, beverages, and chairs — no reservations — and the suggested donation is $10. Each of the two vocalists gets their own mic, and there are no duets.

So far, thanks to lucrative TV contracts, professional sports leagues have returned with their superstar athletes to empty stadiums and coliseums. Unfortunately, that business model hasn’t worked for Blumenthal Performing Arts’ big three venues — Belk, Ovens, and the Knight. We can expect them to remain shut down until at least December.

In the meantime, performing arts around the globe have migrated online. Charlotte Ballet was among the first to adapt. Within two weeks of canceling the March 13 premiere of their “fairytailored” Sleeping Beauty at the last minute, Ballet dipped into their digital vaults and streamed Dispersal, their first free digital event. The flick depicted more than merely a rehash of the choreographies presented at Innovative Works 2019, when Charlotte Ballet collaborated with the Mint Museum, the Studio Drift duo, and choreographer Christopher Stuart. Intercut with the Innovative performance videos was behind-the-scenes footage that transformed the evening into a documentary, reaching an audience of more than 13,000.

Enter Zoom for a brand-new collaboration. Charlotte Ballet artistic director Hope Muir couldn’t help noticing that the web was becoming oversaturated with dance.

“We took a step back to regroup and to explore other means of engagement,” Muir reveals, “and I worked with choreographer Helen Pickett to discuss our options and resulted in an opportunity for five of our dancers. Charlotte Ballet joins artists from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Dance Theater of Harlem for Part III of a trilogy Helen developed titled Home Studies, which is entirely choreographed and rehearsed via Zoom.” (Airing on August 27 on

Charlotte Ballet’s Facebook page.)

No less audacious, Muir has sidelined Nutcracker, Ballet’s traditional Yuletide cash cow, for the 2020-21 season. Fingers crossed, she’s replacing the beloved Russian ballet at Belk Theater this December with another Tchaikovsky masterwork, the previously abandoned Sleeping Beauty: A FairyTailored Classic.

The reawakened Sleeping Beauty is the first live event to be planted on the 2020-21 calendar, but Theatre Charlotte has hatched — or is it hedged? — some hybrids. After purchasing video equipment, the Queens Road barn can now pivot to streaming.

Twelve Angry Men, originally scheduled for October, has been ditched because Theatre Charlotte couldn’t obtain streaming rights. Instead, the company will showcase A.R. Gurney’s What I Did Last Summer for three nights in September and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer for three dates in October. Both productions will feature socially distanced casts performing on the same Cat on a Hot Tin Roof set that has been waiting for action on Theatre Charlotte’s stage since March.

These shows will be ticketed, streamed behind a paywall. Law hopes that audiences will be able to attend the traditional holiday production of A Christmas Carol on Queens Road. But he isn’t taking chances. He had Chris Timmons shorten his own adaptation to 90 minutes so that it can be performed without intermission, utilizing a small cast and a narrator.

“If we can perform it live in [Theatre Charlotte] by that time, we will,” Law declares. “We will also put it on video and stream it for those who don’t feel safe coming to the theatre or can’t be accommodated due to limited seating capacity.”

Three Bone Theatre has a four-person leadership team, the same number as Theatre Charlotte’s fulltime staff — except Three Bone executive director Becky Schultz serves on a volunteer basis. Because of their non-traditional staffing, the company wasn’t eligible to apply for PPP funding. Because they don’t control their own space, they can’t rehearse or perform as freely as Theatre Charlotte, Children’s Theatre, and Charlotte Ballet.

“When we do go back into production, we are facing smaller house sizes and artists and patrons who are concerned about safety. We will need to prioritize shows with smaller casts and production costs, limiting the stories we can tell,” Schultz confides. “It’s impossible to say when audiences will

OPERA CAROLINA HAD TO CANCEL THIS YEAR’S RUN OF ‘I DREAM’ WHEN THE PANDEMIC HIT.

PHOTO BY MITCHELL KEARNEY

return to pre-COVID levels but we expect it will take a long time. We have lost the forward momentum that we’ve spent the last eight years developing, and dipping into our reserves delays our ability to finally add staff.”

It’s been over six months since Three Bone’s last production shut down. Revenue from their last two shows, Dada Woof Papa Hot scheduled for May and This Is Modern Art for July, was largely lost, representing 40% of their 2019-20 season. During the shutdown, Three Bone staffers have dealt with loss of jobs, taking on the rigors of homeschooling, experiencing the stresses of quarantine, and watching family members battle the virus.

A New Reckoning Arises

Like other performing arts companies across Charlotte — we sent out questionnaires to 17 of them — Schultz and her Three Bone team are heeding the crosswinds of social unrest sweeping across the country. The Black Lives Matter reckoning is spilling onto our streets amid the pandemic, troubling consciences and challenging longstanding norms.

In their planning of how to come back from COVID, arts leaders agree that it’s not just about making the smart business decisions necessary to cope with new realities; it’s about being better.

Schultz admits that Three Bone is re-evaluating 2020-21 programming.

“We believe that Black lives matter and Black theatre matters,” Schultz states, “and we have a

responsibility to ensure that we are deliberately supporting that with our programming, both on stage and behind the scenes. We are taking this opportunity to further educate ourselves as individuals and as an organization. We are listening to BIPOC [Black and Indigenous People of Color] artists, engaging in difficult conversations and reflecting on how we can do more to be an anti-racist company.” Black theatre has been part of Actor’s Theatre programming for every season since 2008-09, most recently with Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill — with Crowns on tap for their upcoming season — yet Decker is among the arts leaders of Charlotte unanimously proclaiming that they are rededicating themselves to BLM. “ATC is working hard on recognizing and dismantling our own systemic racist culture,” Decker responds, “and we are in full support of the Black Lives Matter movement and having room at

the table for BIPOC.”

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Nor is Actor’s Theatre an exception. Inclusive programming is admirably pervasive across the spectrum of Charlotte’s performing arts scene. Opera Carolina was close to presenting I Dream for a second time — in a newly revised version — when the pandemic hit. Charlotte Ballet has a long history of showcasing African-American dancers onstage and forging sturdy relationships with Black choreographers behind the scenes.

Up in Cornelius, WPAC was in mid-rehearsal of Lynn Nottage’s award-winning Sweat when COVID shut things down. Ron McClelland was directing a diverse cast that included Shar Marlin, Brian Daye, and Dominic Weaver. That show might pivot to a streaming format when the production team meets to decide.

Theatre Charlotte, with Ain’t Misbehavin’ in February 2019 and Dreamgirls missing-in-action back in May, certainly hasn’t been caught off-guard by pleas for Black programming. CPCC Theatre has presented multiple dramas by August Wilson, their Summer Theatre offered Beehive in 2019, and the college recently announced the onboarding of a new chief diversity officer.

Aside from the Johnson C. Smith theatre department and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, there are two Black theatre companies based in Charlotte: On Q Performing Arts and Brand New Sheriff. Charlotte has hosted — and won — the National Poetry Slam, we have an annual jazz festival closely aligned with Jazz @ Lincoln Center, and we were the first American city to host the Breakin’ Convention.

Up in Winston-Salem, the National Black Theatre Festival has convened for a week in oddnumbered years since 1989, most recently in 2019 when they hosted more than 40 African-American celebs, 30-odd Black theatre productions from across the nation, and the American Theatre Critics Association.

So Charlotte and North Carolina have nothing to hang their heads about if you’re making comparisons about Black culture and programming.

Dig beneath Charlotte’s shiny surfaces, however, and you do notice the structural, systemic problems that are drawing fire. Sixteen of the 17 questionnaires we sent out — to companies who had already found a spot on our 2020 calendars before COVID — were earmarked for Caucasians.

No arts organization in the Metrolina region presents a more diverse array of educational and onstage programming — or serves a more diverse audience — than Children’s Theatre of Charlotte. When they halted the hip-hop run of Grimmz Fairy Tales and shelved Dragons Love Tacos, staff at ImaginOn did not leave the students enrolled in their 20-week School of Theatre training program in the lurch.

Adroitly, they pivoted, so that two onstage plays and two musicals were moved to virtual format. Summer camps began online, not skipping a beat, morphing to a hybrid program — your choice of online or in-person — when guidelines from Centers for Disease Control, state, and federal officials could be met.

Collaborating with 37 children’s theaters across the country, Children’s posted a new adaptation of A Kids Book About Racism as a virtual performance early this month, and they’re continuing work on their commission of Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba as part of The Kindness Project.

Yet executive director Adam Burke is among the good guys who are still doing some soul-searching.

“This is an incredibly important moment in the world, but also here in Charlotte, both socially and culturally,” Burke asserts. “Black Lives Matter is at the center of this moment. It is our responsibility to be checking to ensure that we are doing this in a way that is equitable and inclusive. What I, and Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, can do is work to acknowledge and eliminate unconscious bias through active education as well as examination of current practices and policies, and that is what we are doing.”

Systemically, the most obvious places to be on the lookout for change is on the roster of performing arts vacancies around town.

Burke reports that his director of advancement position has been vacant since November and that managing director Linda Reynolds is retiring at the end of this month.

Law isn’t the only leader who needs to be replaced once he’s allowed to retire — CPCC’s Tom Hollis ended his long tenure as department chair on Aug. 1.

Our performing arts companies can address adversity and diversity at the same time, but we can help with our interest, encouragement, and support. We can also check the behavior of ourselves and those around us.

Decker probably says it best: “Tell your crazy uncle to put on his damn mask!”

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