- [Announcer] A production of South Carolina ETV.

(upbeat music) - Hi, and welcome to this edition of The Caravan.

We're happy you've joined us.

Today, we're in Columbia, South Carolina on the fourth floor of the South Carolina State Museum.

I'm Bill Terrell.

- And I'm Patricia Bennett.

Bill, we're standing in front of what I consider a masterpiece.

We're going to meet the gentleman responsible for this artwork in just a few moments on the show.

We're also going to Spartanburg to see the other side of the situation in Spartanburg.

There's good and there's bad.

- Also on The Caravan this week, last time, we took you to the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, to find out how it got started and why it's so important for that community.

Today, we'll meet some of the artists, some of the promoters, as well as staffers for the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

- But first up, his work is elegant and graceful.

It's a beautiful combination of craftsmanship and artistic ability.

And now, he's passing that on, his ability on to younger men so they can carry on.

Meet Philip Simmons.

(metal banging) These are the sounds and images of one man's life's work.

♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪ - At 85 years old, Philip Simmons is living a very full life.

It's a life that's given beauty to many others.

Simmons graceful iron work today adorned some of the most beautiful buildings in this country.

(whimsical music) Almost 74 years ago, when he was first attracted to, as he describes it, "the fire," Mr. Simmons did not plan to become an artist of such note.

- But I went by the blacksmith shop and I forget about that shoemaker shop.

I saw the spark in the blacksmiths shop, and the fire.

Horse kicking up and he wanted somebody to hold the horse, put the twist on him and hold them.

Putting the wagon wheel together.

And I just liked to be buoyant.

And the blacksmith shop had a lot of action going on.

- [Patricia] You started out as a blacksmith.

So, when did you become an artisan?

- [Philip] I became an artisan in 1940.

Blacksmith maybe, about 1949.

The first wrought iron gate I made like what you see around here in 1949, and that gate is still standing.

I made it for one of the merchants here in Charleston, name, Jack Crochet.

He means everything to me.

'Cause man, the horses went out and I knew nothing about fixing cars and motor.

And that's what was coming, the cars and the motors, I mean, the cars was coming, putting the horse out of business.

All of the funeral homes around here had horses and carriages and the hearse pulled by horses.

That's when the work of the blacksmith shop when I went into the blacksmith shop.

(family laughs and claps) - [Patricia] This is a birthday party, but it's also a celebration of the fact that Philip Simmons' art legacy will continue.

Artists and craftsmen, Carlton Simmons, and Joseph Pringle will carry on.

- Mr. Simmons is a wonderful man.

He's a great teacher.

Got patience, long endurance, that he has.

He go over and over with you.

Make sure you get it right.

He's a fine man.

- [Patricia] Joseph Pringle started his apprenticeship with Mr. Simmons when Pringle was just 13 years old way back in the fifties.

- You come look at the piece, you finished with it he come and look at it.

Nope, something ain't right.

And he start tear the whole thing down.

Start all over again.

But that's the way he been in the beginning.

Yeah.

After a while I sort of learn his style.

When he look at something I look at it, I said, well, he going to do it like this.

And that's the way he does.

After all these years.

I guess it just rubs off on me.

- [Patricia] Carlton Simmons, Mr. Simmons' nephew, started his apprenticeship about 15 years ago.

He looks forward to continuing the work.

- First of all, it's a great legacy.

And he taught me more just about life than just, you know, iron work.

He taught me whole lot of life too.

- [Patricia] Mr. Simmons birthday party is being held in the heart garden on the grounds of the St. John's Reformed Episcopal Church.

Mr. Simmons is a member of the church.

The garden is dedicated to his life and work.

You are welcomed into the garden by Mr. Simmons Magnificent Heart Gate.

(whimsical music) Rossie Coulter is the project administrator for the Philip Simmons Foundation.

The foundation was formed to develop and maintain the garden.

- He's gentle and he's a perfectionist.

He has talents that I don't think he was aware that he had.

And the stories he tells are great.

- [Patricia] Mr. Simmons works out of this very unpretentious shed behind his home.

Customers like Alice Bowman appreciate his accessibility.

- I'm here for my girlfriend, Cindy.

She's from Washington DC and she admires Mr. Simmons so much and she bought one of his pieces and didn't get it autographed.

This is my second trip, and this morning I finally got him.

Yeah.

- [Patricia] Now what did you have signed here today?

- I brought my fish.

My fish.

(both laugh) It's really her fish but I brought the fish for him to sign.

- [Patricia] And there's something else you want too as well.

- The heart.

She really wants the heart.

(whimsical music) - Philip Simmons' life is reflected in his work, lasting and functional beauty.

I really enjoyed meeting Mr. Simmons.

And when you come to the State Museum, you must come up and see his beautiful wrought iron gate.

This is absolutely a masterpiece.

He has incorporated the South Carolina Palmetto Tree the egret, which is a South Carolina bird, and of course the leaves from the grand and magnificent magnolia tree that we see all over the state.

So make sure you make a stop here when you come to the museum.

- It was some 20 years ago that we did Mr. Philip Simmons.

And he is hoping that for those of you looking for a skill or looking for a career, to think about becoming a craftsman and let Mr. Philip Simmons of course, be the chief motivator.

It's a greatly needed profession in a lot of different areas, and perhaps you can fulfill it.

And now the Caravan moves on back to Charlotte, North Carolina to the Afro-American Cultural Center where we meet some of the people who make the center as successful as it is today.

(upbeat drum music) While visiting the Afro-American Cultural Center of Charlotte, North Carolina, we met some of the artists, Promoters and Staff members Who work Together harmoniously to contribute to the successful vibrancy of the center.

April Turner is a writer and actress who has appeared in plays, films, and movies.

- Films such as The Ditch Digger's Daughters, Sophie and the Moon Hanger.

Other Voices, Other Rooms, which we shot down in Charleston and is currently playing in Europe.

Also had roles in other movies like Texas Cadet Murders and several others.

One coming out soon called Stephen King's The Night Flier which I'm excited about.

Also, as far as writing is concerned, I've produced and written plays such as Nikki's Gone, Starlight Moonshine Times, Spirit Races, Freshly Squeezed which is the one woman show that we did in South Carolina.

And I'm currently working with a cast on Cocoa, Chocolate on The Outside.

That's a play I'm really excited about because with this play, we're able to explore some issues that are seldom dealt with on stage or on film but I think are important to people in their everyday lives.

- [Bill] Turner, who is a staff member at the center, firmly believes in the importance of the arts.

- And the most important thing I can say about the arts right now is that it's critical that everybody support them.

Because the arts, whether it's theater, music or any other discipline, the arts is the one place where people are comfortable talking about their differences.

And if we're gonna grow together as a society, as people as human beings, we need to talk about our differences and overcome them and see how alike we are.

(gentle guitar music) - Hello, my name is Roger Davis and I work here at the Afro-American Cultural Center.

I work with a program called Building Bridges which is an inner city performing arts program where I have an opportunity to go throughout various inner city communities and work with at risk youth on writing plays and writing songs and music.

And I realized the importance of the performing arts in our communities.

So many communities are lacking it as ways of finding alternatives to behavior and finding a positive outlet for our youth.

- [Bill] Roger Davis, an actor and musician also works at the Afro-American Cultural Center.

He works with children's theater as an actor.

Jerry Chisholm is a resident artist at the center.

Chisholm uses culture to teach children.

- Children discover a lot about themselves and the world that they live in when they're given an opportunity.

All of our children are not gonna be book scholars.

They're not all going to be scholastically gifted.

But I feel art expression is another alternative for children to use.

And sometimes children feel that they have no value that they don't have an expression that is worthy of anyone hearing it if it's not through a book.

You know, children can't express themselves through the Pythagorean theorem.

Children can't express themselves through Shakespeare, but if I taught them the land that they come from they might be able to find themselves in a lesson, in a parable, in a dance that conveys the meaning of the people, the culture and all of those type things.

So I really feel like the arts are necessary and when used properly children can develop into very productive citizens.

- Hamad Daniels has been involved with the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte in a number of projects including the spearheading of memorial observances for Malcolm X, whom he greatly admires.

Daniel says he has a great appreciation for the art.

- On and on.

But I have a great appreciation for the art.

And a lot of that stems from what I read in 1967 or '68 in an old magazine called Negro Digest which later became Black World.

And it was Amiri Baraka who said that "There is no such thing as art for art's sake, that all art reflects the value system from which it comes."

And what he said by that, if black people or African American people are to draw trees we should draw out revolutionaries beneath those trees using those trees for a kind of shade.

And if we are to draw a bowls of fruit we should draw revolutionaries eating that fruit.

So we don't just do art because there's art.

We have an obligation to meet our people at wherever point they may be, and take them to a point where they could become helpful and beneficial to the change that we're trying to bring about.

So art to me is something real.

It's something that has to reflect our value system.

It has to also keep in mind what our past has been.

So we may use that past as to establish frameworks and foundations for the future.

- [Bill] Makayla is a visual and performing artist - As a performing artist.

I am a poet and a lyricist, a songwriter.

I do some acting.

I've done some acting for children's theater here in Charlotte, and I've been in a few commercials and that's wonderful, that helps pay the bills.

But my real reason for being an artist is because I can't be anything else.

You know, art, it's like through art, everything else comes, math or English or your verbal skills or your ability to relate to other people.

You know, if you step in somebody else's moccasin suddenly you have a whole new perspective.

And you know, I thought that theater has got to be the most significant thing that I could do because you have a captive audience for an hour or two hours and you may change thousands or hundreds of people's lives in a moment.

You know, give somebody fruit for thought help somebody be more compassionate or more understanding.

- [Bill] Wayne DeHart, a native South Carolinian is an actor who moved to Charlotte, North Carolina from Houston, Texas.

- And one of my primary reasons for moving here was because there was no, zero, zip black theater here as far as a group that you can go sit down and watch Black theater consistently.

And I definitely think that's a shame and a sin in the city that calls itself, wanted to be the international city.

And they getting football teams and all this they ain't got black theater here.

So that's kind of one of my goals to be is try to help somebody, if it's not me help somebody try to develop this so that, I mean we can pass this on to our kids and stuff like that.

You know, we get all these buzzwords today about folks wanting to empower folks and all that.

And you know, I think artists, me as an artist I never start doing the stuff I do because I wanted to teach somebody.

It was my way of expressing what I had to say.

And if somebody wants to learn, fine.

You know.

- [Bill] Wayne DeHart is an accomplished actor who has worked on many projects.

- Yeah.

So many the things I've had a chance to do being an actor.

Like I don't drive a car for one thing.

So one film, it was some German TV series.

I got the chance to drive this brand new Cadillac down the street in Houston (laughs) and they were freaking out about it.

I got a chance to sing the blues when I did the Elvis TV series on Beale Street in Memphis, which actually, Mojo Beaufort who was Muddy Waters Harmonic Command when I got to do a jam, when I worked on Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, Taj Mahal and I did a little impromptu concert with all the people who were there like Isaac Hayes, Phylicia Rashad think I've done a couple of things with Phylicia.

And some of the things I, chances again, if I weren't an actor, I probably wouldn't get a chance to do a lot of these things.

And the last thing I just did I finished working on some of Robert Duvall.

I've done two or three pieces with him, Clint Eastwood and I have done two projects together.

(upbeat music) - One of the yard sticks for measuring the education of a person is to know how well that person knows himself.

So with that in mind, we remembered ancient African proverb which says that "One who does not know one's culture is doomed never to know oneself."

A little later, we'll meet some other people who play an integral role in the success of the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

- And we're on the road again, back up to Spartanburg South Carolina.

Now, generally speaking, that city is benefiting from the economic growth of the upstate but not everyone is benefiting.

So what about those being left behind?

(traffic rumbles) The city of Spartanburg, South Carolina has a population of about 44,000 people.

46% of that is African American.

It's a city with African Americans in prominent positions.

The mayor, the director of public safety and the superintendent of schools.

That's the bright side.

- There is the despair here in Spartanburg in some areas.

- [Patricia] Ed Montgomery heads the NAACP in Spartanburg.

- The people that I'm dealing with who call on the phones with their complaints are the other side of the story that you're talking about who are calling on the phone and telling me that they have a problem on the job because of racism or the letters that I'm getting whereas a person who's on a job with a mediocre job anyway, and they decide to maybe do a cutback and they only cut back on the Blacks.

These are the kinds of things that you're talking about.

If you talk to some of these people, they do not believe there's a future.

- [Patricia] Even with all the promise and growth apparent in the upstate too many African Americans in this area feel left out.

- The access to jobs, one problem is transportation.

What has occurred, the better paying jobs in general are located on the fringes here in Spartanburg.

Those persons who have prepared themselves educationally and they generally have transportation are able to get to those jobs.

I don't wanna stress so much in regard to the BMW, but some of the other good jobs, good paying jobs for down in this area are in the suppliers.

And when I say for this area 10 to $15 an hour is considered a really good job.

So basically we're talking about 25 to $30,000 a year and the person could live very very comfortable on those kinds of stuff.

But those jobs are located on the outskirts of town.

Now, within the inner city, we're looking at the service jobs and those service jobs we're talking about minimum wage to about $8 an hour.

Now, the largest employer we have here in Spartanburg happens to be the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.

And as I've said before, I think they do an excellent job in hiring, but they, again, have got token of minorities in management.

They still have the majority of your areas which will be housekeeping and dietary.

And those people, that's pretty well about 85 to 90% staffed by minorities and that's low paying jobs.

And I think the big key we do have in Spartanburg is drug addiction and alcoholism.

And those two problems, those are main things that that keep people from progressing.

Those two, drug addiction and alcoholism.

And these are young people.

I'm talking about people in their early twenties and thirties who are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

And a lot of the people who cannot maintain their job, first of all, they don't have the education and they'll go to the fast food areas, you know, and they'll work in the fast food areas but they can't work there that long because they can't maintain a job.

- [Patricia] So yes, there are problems in Spartanburg South Carolina, problems that can only be solved through hard work and working together.

Next week we'll focus on one Spartanburg woman who sees the problems and is working hard toward solutions.

- And so I started working with the narcotics agents.

I had called around and called around and found somebody.

I got to the point where I even took pictures.

I brought my camera out here and was standing right there on that stoop and photographed the people I knew were doing things.

They got a point whenever I was here, they stayed away.

They know I gonna take pictures.

I started taking light tag numbers.

I know it.

And this right here is what I was talking about.

You see how dark this is.

And at night... - Yes, we will be back in Spartanburg next week.

You know, this show is all about you and for you, so we want your input.

So write us here at The Jobman Caravan, S-C-E-T-V post Office Box 11000 Columbia, South Carolina 29211.

(upbeat music) - And we also remind you to tell others about The Jobman Caravan, a program dedicated to building better communities.

And now, back to Charlotte, North Carolina to meet three other people who play integral roles in the success of the Afro-American Cultural Center.

- As a means of- - [Bill] Sherry Walker is a former arts education specialist at the center.

She's also a writer and freelance journalist.

- And arts education, I found since I've been here is just very, very important to young people as well as adults because it allows us to understand more about who we are and who other people are.

And it's just, I enjoy what I do because I like seeing others, I love seeing children learn and seeing the excitement that is produced from their involvement in a dance workshop, a storytelling workshop or a drama program.

So that's why I do what I do here.

I also write, I'm a freelance writer for The Observer and some other publications here in Charlotte.

And I focus on how arts and culture impact the community and how important it is for us to know about our culture and where we came from and who we are before we can really make a change with some of the very serious problems that we have in this community and surrounding communities.

- [Bill] Robert Hampton is the president and founder of the Park Ellington Group, dedicated to the promotion of jazz.

- Jazz is the most important art form to me at this time.

It's the only American art form.

Again, listening to the radio and starving for some type of culture.

And also jazz is very revolutionary music.

It requires you to think it requires you to challenge yourself.

And I just felt as though the kids need to be exposed to that.

To have an opportunity to meet young and upcoming jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redmond, Danilo Pérez even Nancy Wilson to look at other options.

Sometimes my friends criticize with being somewhat of a stuffed shirt and saying, well, look, you know there's other art forms out here.

Why are you so in love with jazz?

I think if we can get kids to be interested in learning how to play an instrument it can prolong careers, especially if they're musically inclined, as opposed to just sitting in front of a turntable or whatever and sampling.

When you sample music, you know, sometimes you're not prolonging a career you're just pretty much using someone else's music.

But with jazz, it's a tendency.

You have a tendency to learn how to master an instrument to learn how to again, prolong a career.

And again, it's our music, from Satchmo to Billie Holiday from Wynton Marsalis to Donald Harrison.

It's a revolutionary music and it's something that we should be very proud of.

- [Bill] Candace Jennings is a teacher, (upbeat drum music) choreographer and writer.

Candace has been involved in the arts since the age of three.

- Theater has been very important in my life and I think it's kept me out of trouble, when I look at all the dancers that I dance with how many of us were focused and disciplined in our work.

And it made us who we are as people.

And I like to pass that on to my students.

I work with, I just finished choreographing A Stranger on The Bus for the Children's Theater.

I choreographed The Wiz for the Afro-American Children's Theater and we will be doing that again in November.

I think having a positive outlet, another option for young people is important to keep them motivated and excited about who they are.

You know, as an artist you are your work and you make yourself better and you invest in yourself and nobody can take that from you.

You know, are your work and you always have work so long as you're motivated to get out and share it.

And that's one thing that's exciting for me is getting out and sharing what I've learned with young people.

(upbeat drum music) - It's been such a pleasure being here in front of this beautiful piece of artwork.

I wonder if they'd notice if I took that home with me.

I'm Patricia Bennett.

- And I'm Bill Terrell.

Until next time, remember, we love you and stay strong.

- Bye-Bye.

(upbeat music)