Baker Barber Collection Honors African American Members of Henderson County Community
Hendersonville, N.C., April 18, 2017: Photographs from the Baker Barber collection will be featured in a special presentation that honors the African American members of the Henderson County community. The slideshow entitled �Unlocking the Mysteries of the Baker Barber Photos� will take place on Wednesday, April 26, 2017 from 5 to 6:30 pm in the Kaplan Auditorium at the Henderson County Public Library. The show is free to the public and will feature Baker Barber photographs of African Americans living in the Henderson County from the 1890�s to the 1970�s.
The show is facilitated by volunteers Ron Partin and Ronnie Pepper. Partin and Pepper hope that audience members will be able to assist in the identification of the unknown individuals in the photographs. Partin describes the significance of the presentation. �One of the main purposes of the project is to preserve the stories behind each photo. We hope volunteers can help identify people and events recorded in the photos.�
Gifted to Community Foundation of Henderson County by the late Joseph �Jody� Egerton Barber and maintained at the Henderson County Public Library, the Baker Barber Photo Collection contains thousands of images documenting people, places and events in and around Henderson County from 1884 to the mid-1990s. Over the past three years, local residents have attended photo viewing sessions at the Henderson County Public Library in a community-wide attempt to identify the nameless people and places captured in a collection of over 65,000 photographs.
The presentation celebrating African American members of the Henderson County community is a result of increased public interest in the collection. The January 2017 edition of Our State magazine featured an article by local author Jeremy B. Jones that detailed the significance of the Baker Barber collection in the Henderson County community. The Baker Barber collection is currently being featured in a special exhibit at the Henderson County Heritage museum. Volunteers will celebrate the collection�s 100th photo viewing session on June 1, 2017 at 1:30 pm in the Kaplan Auditorium at the Henderson County Public Library.
Previous grants from the Community Foundation of Henderson County funded positions to assist resulting in the digitization of 4,843 photographs which are now available to the public on the Henderson County Public Library website. Additional donations will ensure the care of the collection such as the continuance of the digital conservation effort and future Baker-Barber exhibits. To view the digital images currently available please view the Henderson County Public Library website at: http://www.henderson.lib.nc.us/bakerbarber_about.html.
Any donations to the Baker-Barber fund at CFHC will ensure that the historical memory of Henderson County continues to be preserved for posterity. Donations can be delivered or mailed to Community Foundation of Henderson County or made electronically at https://www.CFHCforever.org/BakerBarberFund.
Since 1982, Community Foundation of Henderson County has been helping people who care make lasting contributions to causes that matter. The Community Foundation accepts gifts from individuals, families, businesses and organizations to create a pool of charitable funds from which grants are awarded to address community needs. Learn more about Community Foundation of Henderson County at www.CFHCforever.org, at the Community Foundation�s Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and by calling (828) 697-6224.