Southside Holds Annual Black & Silver Ball

Staff reports

“It was a time when people were on one accord, and we struggled, worked, fellowshipped, and educated our family members. We were a community of proud people — the community of Southside,” said Robert Hardy.

Until the late 1960s Asheville’s Southside was a stable, hard-working neighborhood. Many residents were financially poor, but it was a spiritually rich community, and ties of family and friendship were strong. People knew each other — and their cousins, children, and grandparents — and they looked after their own. And then huge earth-moving equipment moved in and began knocking down houses, stores, everything. Southside, covering approximately 405 acres, was subjected to the biggest Urban Renewal Project in the Southeastern Unites States. “Projects” replaced homes, and a diaspora replaced a community.

Robert Hardy remembers, as do many others, the tight-knit community
at a time when drinks were a nickel and cookies were two for a penny.
But that was yesteryear.

However, on this New Years Eve, the old folk whispered and
chuckled about the days of yesteryear! They remembered the old
Charlie’s Market, and the big baseball crackers from Reuben’s Store,
and visits to “The Cave,” a private Juke Joint with its hand-carved
dirt back walls. They remembered how the James Keys Hotel, on a special
night like New Year’s Eve, would come alive with glitz and glamor, and
the crowd would spill out over to the Owl Lounge. And so they came,
from nearby and from across the country, to see old friends, and
celebrate, and ring in this New Year with memories and remembrance.