Black Mountain College is world famous for it’s unique identity as a place to associate with a global student body. Students, and faculty arrived at the college from twenty different and far reaching countries. Some escaped from the Nazis in Europe, but also Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean.were represented.

Black Mountain’s founders wanted the college to reflect diversity. They did achieve that goal and it is reflected in the art of this exhibit. The exhibit prompts the viewer to examine their own pre-concieved ideas or attitudes, using art to raise awareness.

Black Mountain was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed as faculty from Rollins College in a seminal academic freedom incident, specifically for refusing to sign a loyalty pledge, for which Rollins was formally censured by the American Association of University Professors. The institution was established to “avoid the pitfalls of autocratic chancellors and trustees and allow for a more flexible curriculum,” and “with the holistic aim ‘to educate a student as a person and a citizen.'”The school was originally funded through a $10,000 gift from “Mac” Forbes, a former Rollins College faculty member, after the founders were unable to raise funds from traditional sources.^[

More about the innovative ideas from Black Mountain College are on this link.

More about WPVM’s posts on arts and culture in Asheville on this link