Host Organization: Carpetbag Theatre October 9, 2009
The 40th anniversary of Carpetbag Theatre was a unique opportunity to gather information on expectations, dreams and desires for Carpetbag future. The ROOTS Resources for Social Change team, Omari Fox, Paula Larke, Gwylene Gallimard and Latonnya Wallace recorded on video or audiotapes interviews in Knoxville’s East Magnolia and Mechanicsville neighborhoods. They also conversed and recorded various people during the picnic at Knoxville Botanical Gardens. There they also presented their activities and what they have heard.
Our conversations often started with the following conversations:
Do you know who or what Carpetbag is?
What are the stories that could have been told?
What are the stories that should be told?
Would you like to act, participate or partner with Carpetbag?
We were careful to present ourselves as a team and not as a crew. Some people did not want to be recorded but were very talkative and energized by our conversations.
All the tapes audio and video are archived. Reviewing them led to a clear understanding of immediate concerns of the community. - Prepared by Paula Larke, with notes added by Gwylene Gallimard.
Stories that need telling are:
The URGENT need for after-school safe places and activities for children 4-18.
Stories in memory of the kids who were killed caught in drug gang activities: life and death of people who were murdered at the corner of the street in order to counter the glorification of those murders as entertainment.
The intricacies of fighting for historical recognition and preservation in communities of color
Stories of gentrification
History of Knoxville College
The existence of programs that are embracing and empowering women in the community – especially the FISH PANTRY
The selfishness of programs that promote only themselves and not other similar efforts in the community. (“The drum major” syndrome – MLK, Jr.)
Politics: our stories about people in power.
Shops as Community Centers
Imagining tomorrow.
The proliferation of hard and soft drug sales could be stopped with legalization and regulation. * The police seem unwilling or unable to stop the flow of illegal drugs into East Knoxville. The sales of hard drugs and the unchecked gang recruitment and activities are causing assaults, turf wars (gun violence), and a general environment of danger for the peace and safety – deprived East Knoxville communities. Residents are experiencing heightened anxiety about the constant availability of pharmaceuticals, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, and the resultant violence, child neglect, and general community demoralization. How can we speak without being targeted?
*Opinion of one business owner only out of five interviews. The question of legalization did not come up with other four interviewees.
OVERVIEW
Only one man interviewed, Harold J., of Harold J’s barbershop, knew of Carpetbag Theatre and had been a witness to its history, including the radio station once operated by Emanuel Bailey. The property Carpetbag was hoping to acquire is across the street from him. Harold J. is a respected mentor to the young people next door, and is a dutiful djali for the neighborhood and its history. He managed to save his and the Cansler Building next to him from demolition by going through the labyrinthine dealings with the city necessary to do so. The younger (under 40) generation had no idea about Carpetbag; they had not been touched by any of its programs. When there was a community memory, it was connected with a program done in the neighborhood, or in the building where participants regularly assembled (ALTA, Sisters of the Rainbow), and the people contacted who had experienced those programs showed up Saturday at the Homecoming. Pauline’s restaurant is connected with kids after school and has some space upstairs potentially available for creative activity with Carpetbag. The barbershop on its left and the wood carver/historian/barber on is right makes this block a perfect community setting to develop a small first partnership. Many people at the 40th anniversary expressed a strong need to be involved in community work.
Updates from Carpetbag Linda Parris-Bailey - Executive Director - April 2011
We are now re-uniting the “Youth Theater Festival” at Knoxville College, and the Moses Teen Center with the KUUMBA festival in a slightly different way, but we are once again pooling resources and working jointly. Folks in Mechanicsville may not be aware that those programs are produced by CBT. Kellie Jollie has been organizing community events utilizing our individual skills and those of a really diverse group of community artists. We are also working directly with Beth Hunley's food pantry project, which is based in North Knoxville, a low-income community. We were unable to produce the Spoken Word Project in Mechanicsville, but did co-host the Southern Fried Poetry Slam and produce the Youth Theater Festival in conjunction with that event. We are working with the Highlander Center on their Racial Healing Project, and working to create a common cultural and housing facility with new partners including Suzanne Pharr, Dorothy Bennett, Margo Miller, Katie Walberg, Rene Delapp and others. We have now done a series at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens and Arboretum, where we held our 40th Anniversary Celebration, that included a community performance of SWOPERA, a CBT Ensemble performance of "Between A Ballad and A Blues", Nick Slie in a sight-specific performance of "Lou Garou" and The Will Boyd Project, Kelle Jolly and Will Boyd's Jazz quartet. We continue to train in Digital Storytelling and would be happy to share some of that work with you as well. I believe that we are well on our way to accomplishing our goals!
I would like to add that we have been operating a youth program for more than twenty years. Our TRY (Theatre Renaissance for Youth) and Summer Youth Programs (SYP) have employed young people during the summers and year round (when funds where available), in a salaried youth employment program consistently over time. The numbers employed have been limited, between 10 and 20 every summer, but these youth have been trained in performance, facilitation, Digital Storytelling, mediation and other skills, and have conducted workshops for other youth. Funded by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, Youth Works Employment Program and other public sources, interviews with young people who have been touched by those programs should also be conducted. We obviously need to get the word out in a much more effective way.
Finally, CBT has a long list of youth interns who have made a tremendous impact on our community (some of whom we have brought into ROOTS membership).
