Finney Cultural Arts Center to launch capital campaign
Drop-in reception to kick off ‘community building’ project
A drop-in open house at the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center tomorrow will serve as the launch of a $2 million capital campaign to transform a historical building into an arts-centric community gathering place.
A mural at the Finney Center depicts its namesake, Justice Ernest A. Finney, Jr.
The center, bounded by two historic districts—the Robert Mills and the Waverly districts—connects a changing downtown Columbia to the heart of the African American community past and present. It is housed in a former tobacco warehouse from the 1940s, which was renovated and repurposed in the 1960s for the offices of the Southern Electric Company.
The Finney Center plans to break ground this fall on a renovation of the building into a gathering place for people of all ages who view art as community building. The plans, developed by the Boudreaux Group architectural firm, include a performance space with a stage and seating for 200 which can be opened to the outdoors, an exhibition space with a 360-degree view, a dance floor, studio rooms, and other spaces for multidisciplinary endeavors.
The center is inviting the community to drop in from 6-8 p.m. at the Finney Center (1510 Laurens St., Columbia).
“Black Philanthropy Month is an annual August reminder for us in the Black community to look behind and to also look ahead,” says Director and Poet Nikky Finney. “Both my paternal and maternal grandparents taught me that it was just fine to focus on my own dreams as long as I also donated time, attention, and money to the community in which I lived, worked, and dreamed, making sure it too prospered. Join us at The Finney Center on August 15 as we host an open house for our community. We want to share with you more about what’s been going on in 2024 and what’s ahead for 2025 and beyond.”
The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is a 501c3 organization in Columbia that focuses on the making of art, the keeping of community, living Black history, and the ongoing generational celebration of music, visual art, poetry, dance, theatre, the culinary arts, and other community building and life sustaining activities. It serves as “an incubator for progressive notions of what it means to be an involved, informed, and engaged creative human being, no matter that human being’s age or background.” Click for more about the Finney Center.
Nikky Finney is a nationally-acclaimed South Carolina-born poet and author of On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice; The World Is Round; and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. A graduate of Talladega College, she taught at the University of Kentucky for 23 years and holds a Carolina Distinguished Professorship and the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. She is a lifetime achievement recipient of the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts in 2016. Nikky Finney is the daughter of the late S.C. Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney, Jr., for whom the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is named. Click for more about Nikky Finney.