How Charlotte shaped Romare Bearden
Plus: Top news of the week — How toll lanes could affect parks; Longer airport TSA lines; Panthers season ticket prices to rise; CMS seeks more money; Tickets available for 40 Over 40 Awards
Good morning! Today is Saturday, March 14, 2026. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger’s Weekend Edition.
Need to subscribe — or upgrade your Ledger e-newsletter subscription? Details here.
Today’s Charlotte Ledger is sponsored by T.R. Lawing Realty:
Romare Bearden: A childhood tied to Mecklenburg County left lasting impressions that later surfaced in art that celebrated Southern life, music, faith and migration.
Editor’s note: You see their names on street signs or parks, but who were some of the big-name people from decades ago who shaped Charlotte? They have fascinating stories, and for the next few Saturdays, we’re sharing them with you.
by John Short
Romare Bearden forged his legendary artistic career in New York City, but the soul of his work always reflected the Charlotte of his youth. Today, the park on Church Street that bears his name stands as a tribute to one of the city’s most important native sons.
Though his family left the South when he was just a toddler, Bearden’s groundbreaking visual art was always anchored in North Carolina’s cultural influence. His works set the aesthetic of the essence of the “New South” — an optimistic, forward-looking vision of a vibrant future.
Bearden was born in 1911 on South Graham Street, just across from what is now Truist Field and a block from the park that today bears his name. This was the home of his great-grandparents, next door to the grocery store owned and operated by his grandfather. Bearden’s parents were college-educated, but the oppressive reality of the Jim Crow South severely limited their professional opportunities. This led his parents, Bessye and Howard, to join the Great Migration north in 1914, relocating to New York City’s Harlem.
Harlem in the 1920s was the cultural center of African American society, and the Bearden household was among its power centers. Bessye Bearden established herself as a civic leader, serving as the New York editor for the Chicago Defender and becoming the first Black woman elected to a local school board.
Her prominence turned the Bearden home into a bustling salon for Harlem Renaissance figures such as Langston Hughes and musicians Duke Ellington and Fats Waller. Surrounded by these cultural giants, young Romare developed a lifelong reverence for literature, jazz and the blues.
Rhythms of rural life
Bearden traveled extensively during his youth, visiting his grandparents back in Charlotte during summers and spending portions of his youth in Pennsylvania, living at his maternal grandparents’ boarding house in the shadow of Pittsburgh’s bellowing steel mills.
In contrast to the industrial, gritty north, Bearden observed the rhythms of rural life in Mecklenburg County, where he saw agrarian fieldwork, river baptisms and lively church picnics. He was particularly captivated by the spiritual healers, known as “conjure women,” mixing herbal remedies. They would later become powerful, recurring figures in his work, representing traditional African wisdom.
As Charlotte was a bustling railroad hub, the presence of passing trains also laid an influential foundation for Braeden’s later work, becoming recurring symbols of “journeying things,” representing the passage of time, the Great Migration and the Underground Railroad.
Setting out on his own as an adult in the mid-1930s, Bearden balanced a career as a social worker for the New York City Department of Social Services with his true passion, creating art on nights and weekends. During this era, he served in World War II, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and even composed music for Billie Holiday.
Traveling the world and surrounded by these rich, often contrasting environments, Bearden forged his artistic identity. His early paintings, such as “The Visitation” (1941) and “Folk Musicians” (1942), used bold colors and flattened perspectives to convey universal emotional themes, earning him solo exhibitions in Harlem (1940) and Washington, D.C. (1944).
As his art and career developed, Bearden sought a medium that could capture the diverse and vibrant nature of his memories. This period of artistic searching coincided with a major personal milestone: In 1954, he married Nanette Rohan, a dancer and choreographer who became a vital grounding force in his life and work.
With her support, the 1950s saw him begin experimenting with collage and photomontage, a technique that would define his legacy and cast him as a pioneer of the contemporary art world by the 1960s. His critical breakthrough arrived with his “Projections” — massive, black-and-white photostatic enlargements of his collages that garnered critical praise.
Innovative medium
Bearden’s signature style involved breaking new ground by layering magazine clippings, painted paper, foil and fabric, often manipulating the textures with bleach or sandpaper. He approached visual art much like a jazz composer approaches a solo: improvising and enabling the composition to grow organically.
Through this innovative medium, Bearden translated his memories into masterpieces. His “Prevalence of Ritual” series, featuring works like the famous 1964 collage “Baptism,” merged ancient purification imagery with African masks and the contemporary civil rights struggle. His deep love for music materialized in the “Of the Blues” series, where pieces like “Carolina Shout” and “At the Savoy” (both 1974) serve as a visual representation of the cadence of jazz.
Beyond his own studio, Bearden was a tireless advocate and intellectual leader who worked to empower other artists of color. In 1963, he co-founded Spiral, a collective of African American artists dedicated to defining their cultural contribution to the civil rights movement. The following year, he was appointed the first art director of the Harlem Cultural Council. Cementing his legacy of mentorship, Bearden co-founded the Cinque Gallery in 1969 alongside artists Norman Lewis and Ernest Crichlow, creating a dedicated space to exhibit and support young minority artists.
He also played a foundational role in creating The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (1970), and he co-authored vital historical texts on African American art. In recognition of his immense cultural contributions, he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972.
Return to Charlotte
While achieving world renown and recognition in his adopted home of New York, Bearden was still drawn to the South. After one trip to Charlotte in the 1970s, he was confronted with the stark reality of urban renewal and its removal of the physical landmarks of his childhood. This realization compelled him to document the fading Southern way of life in the Mecklenburg County Series, featuring vibrant prints like “The Lantern” (1979), which featured regional laborers and rural traditions.
Bearden’s prolific career, which included mastery in watercolors, oils, monotypes, book illustrations and costume design, was crowned in 1987 with the National Medal of Arts, the highest artistic honor in the United States. He passed away in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. Following his passing, Nanette established the Romare Bearden Foundation to preserve and champion his remarkable legacy.
Today, his work resides in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MoMA, the Whitney and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Charlotte’s Mint Museum has the largest public collection of Bearden works in the U.S. and has a dedicated Bearden gallery with works from the collection rotating on a regular basis. [Edited 3/14/26 to include Mint Museum’s collection.]
Bearden has been the subject of massive retrospectives, from the Mint Museum of Art in 1980 to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 2003.
Bearden’s masterpieces now hang in permanent collections of the Met, the MoMA and the Whitney. But his enduring legacy goes beyond gallery walls.
When Romare Bearden Park opened in uptown in 2013, it cemented his presence in the location that inspired his life’s work.
John Short is a freelance writer and co-host of The Charlotte Podcast who loves digging up Charlotte’s past and pondering its future. Say hey when you see him on the streetcar.
Today’s supporting sponsor is Ginkgo Residential, a focused strategy in workforce rental housing across North and South Carolina. Ginkgo REIT provides tax-efficient income, portfolio diversification, and long-term capital appreciation. Next closing April 1st.
This week in Charlotte: UNC Charlotte hazing incidents detailed; CMS teacher departures rise; Blue Ridge Parkway nears full reopening; Sycamore Brewing owner to sell; Internship competition turns fierce
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Education
Records detail hazing incidents: (Ledger) Public records show several hazing-related incidents at UNC Charlotte fraternities in recent years, including members being duct-taped to trees, forced physical activities and embarrassing initiation rituals.
Teacher departures rise at CMS: (Observer, subscriber-only) According to new state data, about 15% of teachers left Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools during the last school year. The report tracks educators who left the district for reasons including career changes, relocation or retirement.
CMS outlines budget: (WFAE) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools says it needs about $37.1M next budget cycle, including $8.8M for a proposed 5% increase to the local teacher supplement. The request also includes funding for student devices, new school openings and higher utility costs as the district prepares its proposal to Mecklenburg County.
Politics
Toll lane debate: (Charlotte in Motion) Despite growing opposition from west Charlotte residents and some local leaders, the plan to add toll lanes along I-77 South is likely to move forward because the state controls the project.
Local news
40 Over 40 Awards: (Ledger) Tickets are now available for The Charlotte Ledger’s 40 Over 40 Awards on April 23 at Project 658. The event celebrates local leaders making an impact across business, nonprofits, health care and education.
CLT warns of longer TSA lines during shutdown: (Queen City News) Officials at Charlotte Douglas International Airport are urging travelers to arrive early due to a partial government shutdown that may reduce staffing. The agency warns that security wait times may increase as officers miss paychecks during the funding stalemate.
Blue Ridge Parkway nearing full reopening: (BPR) Repairs to the last 35 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina damaged by Hurricane Helene are expected to be finished by the end of the year, officials say.
Business
Sycamore Brewing owner to sell business: (Charlotte Business Journal, subscriber-only) Sycamore Brewing owner Sarah Taylor said she is selling the business to Brad Bergman, Sycamore’s director of brewery operations, after Taylor’s husband and Sycamore co-founder Justin Brigham’s arrest in December on sex crime charges. (Taylor filed for divorce in January.) The brewery is being rebranded to Club West Brewing and will reopen its South End taproom today.
More banks incoming: (Axios Charlotte) Banks are racing to open new branches and hire workers in Charlotte, betting the nation’s No. 2 banking hub will keep growing fast enough to justify a rare wave of brick-and-mortar expansion even as much everyday banking moves online.
Six Flags sells 7 parks: (Press Release) Charlotte-based amusement park operator Six Flags announced it is selling seven of its 41 theme parks for $331M so it can “concentrate our capital, leadership and operational focus on the properties that we believe generate the strongest returns and offer the greatest long-term upside.”
Sports
Panthers season ticket prices to rise: (Charlotte Business Journal, subscriber-only) Carolina Panthers season ticket prices will increase by an average of 12% for the 2026 season, the team’s fourth straight annual increase. Renewal notices were sent to fans on Tuesday.
A lucky “spirit animal”: (Ledger🔒) Queen’s University of Charlotte men’s basketball coach Grant Leonard says a German Shepard stuffed animal named “Buddy the Street Dog” has helped inspire the team as it heads to its first NCAA Tournament. The bracket will be announced Sunday.
From the Ledger family of newsletters
Monday
An Rx for loneliness. Plus: Details of UNC Charlotte fraternity hazing; New surgery plan for state workers; How The Election Hub fared; American Express plans second lounge at CLT
Wednesday (🔒)
Bite-sized restaurants. Plus: I-77 South plans would encroach on westside parks; A Buddy for Queens U’s basketball team; Toppman reviews ‘Suffs’; Panthers season tickets to rise; Natural gas rates to blame for big bills
Friday (🔒)
Internship competition turns fierce. Plus: Sycamore successor aims to get back on shelves; Union push amid CLT-American lease negotiation; Uptown’s discount sales; CMS budget request for teacher pay; Bounty on Bradford pear trees
Ways of Life (🔒)
In memoriam: Chris Crawford, a counselor who could empathize with her clients. Also remembered: A foster mom to dozens of children; a founder of the Myers Park High School Alumni Association; a longtime police officer with CMS; a former Charlotte Fire captain
Charlotte in Motion
Where the I-77 widening debate is heading: As residents fume, has Charlotte lost its leverage?
Fútbol Friday
Messi and made-over Miami come to town. Plus: Zaha laments three yellow cards in three games, front office’s focus on fan engagement, and previewing Saturday’s showdown
Toppman on the Arts
The suffragists still demand a hearing: ‘Suffs’ runs through Sunday at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.
Real Estate Whispers (🔒)
Tax-value reality check. Plus: Cathy Bessant talks leadership; Data center for University area?; New tenant at former Second and Charles; South End hotel renderings; Condos for Myers Park; Former EpiCentre to hit market
Need to sign up for this e-newsletter? We offer a free version, as well as paid memberships for full access to all 6 of our local newsletters:
The Charlotte Ledger is a locally owned media company that delivers smart and essential news. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.
◼️ About The Ledger • Our Team • Website
◼️ Newsletters • Podcast • Newcomer Guide • A Better You email series
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Events Board • Merch Store • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn