Black History

John Legend, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, and More Come Together to Help Preserve Nina Simone’s Legacy

THE WESTSIDE GAZETTE — Recently, the National Trust for Historic Preservation through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, is proud to announce a crowdfunding campaign to support the restoration and preservation of Nina Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, NC. This campaign, supported by artists, actors, and musicians including John Legend, will raise funds integral to the exterior restoration of the home where the celebrated singer, pianist and Civil Rights icon’s story began. The home, which has fallen into disrepair requiring urgent revitalization, was designated a National Treasure in June of 2018.

Published

6 years ago

July 17, 2019

Carma Henry

National Trust for Historic Preservation Announces Crowdfunding Campaign to Support the Restoration of Nina Simone’s Childhood Home

By The Westside Gazette

WASHINGTON D.C. – Recently, the National Trust for Historic Preservation through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, is proud to announce a crowdfunding campaign to support the restoration and preservation of Nina Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, NC. This campaign, supported by artists, actors, and musicians including John Legend, will raise funds integral to the exterior restoration of the home where the celebrated singer, pianist and Civil Rights icon’s story began. The home, which has fallen into disrepair requiring urgent revitalization, was designated a National Treasure in June of 2018.

“Spaces devoted to the history and legacy of people of color, especially women of color, are far too few in America today,” said John Legend. “Preserving places like the Simone childhood home will help keep her powerful story alive. This campaign pays tribute to Nina Simone’s unapologetic pursuit of musical, personal, and political freedom and I am proud to be a part of it.”

The National Trust’s crowdfunding campaign will run on IndieGoGo, beginning today, giving the public an opportunity to make donations to this effort, and to purchase newly designed Nina Simone-inspired merchandise including t-shirts, artist prints, pins, and postcards with artwork by Dare Coulter — a North Carolina-based artist working to create positive imagery of people of color. The campaign will also include the option to acquire additional merch donated by musicians including Talib Kweli, and Yusef/Cat Stevens, and actors Mahershala Ali and Issa Rae.

“Our culture is embodied in old places and the history and stories they keep,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “This modest home in Tryon, North Carolina embodies the story of a young black girl who transcended the constraints placed on her in the Jim Crow south, to become the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. Simone’s childhood home provides an important lens for examining the contours of her life, and through its preservation, we hope to celebrate and cement her legacy in our American narrative.”

In 1933, Eunice Waymon, now known as Nina Simone, was born in Tryon, North Carolina. It was in this home that Simone first taught herself the piano at the age of three, performed in public for the first time at the neighborhood church where her mother preached, and where she experienced the constraints placed on African Americans in the rural Jim Crow South. This home would become the inspiration of some of her most influential music and political activism, including songs such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “Four Women.”

In recent years, the three-room, 660-square foot clapboard pier and beam house had fallen in disrepair. The vacant property was put on the market in 2016. Alarmed by the condition of the home and the risk of losing this connection to Nina Simone entirely, four African American visual artists—conceptual artist and painter Adam Pendleton, the sculptor and painter Rashid Johnson, the collagist and filmmaker Ellen Gallagher, and the abstract painter Julie Mehretu—purchased the property in 2017.

“When three fellow artists and I purchased Nina Simone’s childhood home in 2017, we did so with the desire that the site be transformed into a piece of living history, said artist Adam Pendleton. “This space, so integral to Nina Simone’s music and activism, can serve to carry forward her legacy and inspire future artists and musicians.”

Simone’s career spanned multiple genres, four decades, several continents, and earned 15 Grammy nominations. Her songs have been professionally sampled and covered more than 500 times.

“With more than 40 albums over five decades, Nina Simone is one of the most acclaimed singers of all time,” said Neil Portnow, Recording Academy President/CEO. “The Recording Academy has honored her legacy through the GRAMMY Hall of Fame and with a Lifetime Achievement Award, both accolades very much deserved. I’m thrilled to know that her talent will continue to live on through the preservation of her childhood home where her artistic journey began.”

This week, the National Trust will be bringing the Nina Simone Crowdfunding campaign to the 25th annual Essence Festival, where attendees can claim exclusive perks and learn more about this National Treasure.

This article originally appeared in The Westside Gazette.

Carma Henry

Posts by Carma Henry

Up Next

Buying a home in a seller’s market

Don't Miss

Living Legend: Honorable John W. Peavy, Jr.

Carma Henry

4 Comments

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of March 28 – April 1, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 28 – April 1, 2025

Published

2 days ago

March 28, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Report Offers Policies, Ideas to Improve the Workplace Experiences of Black Women in California

The “Invisible Labor, Visible Struggles: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Workplace Equity for Black Women in California” report by the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute (CBWCEI), unveiled the findings of a December 2024 survey of 452 employed Black women across the Golden State. Three-fifths of the participants said they experienced racism or discrimination last year and 57% of the unfair treatment was related to incidents at work.

Published

6 days ago

March 24, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By McKenzie Jackson, California Black Media

Backed by data, a report released last month details the numerous hurdles Black women in the Golden State must overcome to effectively contribute and succeed in the workplace.

The “Invisible Labor, Visible Struggles: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Workplace Equity for Black Women in California” report by the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute (CBWCEI), unveiled the findings of a December 2024 survey of 452 employed Black women across the Golden State. Three-fifths of the participants said they experienced racism or discrimination last year and 57% of the unfair treatment was related to incidents at work.

CBWCEI President and CEO Kellie Todd Griffin said Black women have been the backbone of communities, industries, and movements but are still overlooked, underpaid, and undervalued at work.

“The data is clear,” she explained. “Systemic racism and sexism are not just historical injustices. They are active forces shaping the workplace experiences of Black women today. This report is a call to action. it demands intentional polices, corporate accountability, and systemic changes.”

The 16-page study, conducted by the public opinion research and strategic consulting firm EVITARUS, showcases the lived workplace experiences of Black women, many who say they are stuck in the crosshairs of discrimination based on gender and race which hinders their work opportunities, advancements, and aspirations, according to the report’s authors, Todd Griffin and CBWCEI researcher Dr. Sharon Uche.

“We wanted to look at how Black women are experiencing the workplace where there are systematic barriers,” Todd Griffin told the media during a press conference co-hosted by Ethnic Media Services and California Black Media. “This report is focused on the invisible labor struggles of Black women throughout California.”

The aspects of the workplace most important to Black women, according to those surveyed, are salary or wage, benefits, and job security.

However, only 21% of the survey’s respondents felt they had strong chances for career advancement into the executive or senior leadership ranks in California’s job market; 49% felt passed over, excluded from, or marginalized at work; and 48% felt their accomplishments at work were undervalued. Thirty-eight percent said they had been thought of as the stereotypical “angry Black woman” at work, and 42% said workplace racism or discrimination effected their physical or mental health.

“These sentiments play a factor in contributing to a workplace that is unsafe and not equitable for Black women in California,” the report reads.

Most Black women said providing for their families and personal fulfillment motivated them to show up to work daily, while 38% said they were dissatisfied in their current job with salary, supervisors, and work environment being the top sources of their discontent.

When asked if they agree or disagree with a statement about their workplace 58% of Black women said they feel supported at work, while 52% said their contributions are acknowledged. Forty-nine percent said they felt empowered.

Uche said Black women are paid $54,000 annually on average — including Black single mothers, who averaged $50,000 — while White men earn an average of $90,000 each year.

“More than half of Black families in California are led by single Black women,” said Uche, who added that the pay gap between Black women and White men isn’t forecasted to close until 2121.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Alameda County

Trump Order Slashes Federal Agencies Supporting Minority Business and Neighborhood Development

The latest executive order targeted several federal agencies, including the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, ordering that their programs and staff be reduced “to the minimum presence and function required by law.” The executive order targeted more agencies that Trump “has determined are unnecessary,” the order stated.

Published

7 days ago

March 24, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Brandon Patterson

On March 14, President Trump signed an executive order slashing the operations of two federal agencies supporting growth in minority business and neighborhoods as he continued his attacks on programs supporting people of color and on the size of the federal bureaucracy.

The MBDA’s mission is to “promote the growth and global competitiveness” of minority business enterprises, or MBEs. In 2023, according to its website, the agency helped MBEs access $1.5 billion in capital and facilitated nearly $3.8 billion in contracts awarded to minority business enterprises. It also helped MBEs create or sustain more than 19,000 jobs nationwide. Similarly, the CDFI Fund supports economic growth in under-invested communities by providing funding and technical assistance to local CDFIs, including banks, loan funds, and credit unions, that support community development projects in cities across the country. In 2023, the fund supported more than 1,400 local CDFIs across the country, including more than 80 in California — among the highest number for any state in the country.

The MBDA has local satellite business centers operated by organizations that support minority clients with services such as business consulting, contract bid preparation, loan packaging, and accessing capital funding. The San Francisco Bay Area business center is San Jose, operated by San Francisco-based organization Asian, Inc. Meanwhile, local Oakland CDFIs supported by the federal CDFI fund since 2021 include Habitat Community Capital, TMC Community Capital, Gateway Bank Federal Savings Bank, Beneficial State Bancorp, Inc., and Main Street Launch.

“It is clear that the hollowing out of the CDFI Fund and MBDA is not being ordered because those programs have failed in their mission,” the CEO of Small Business Majority John Arensmeyer, a national organization that advocates for small businesses, said in a statement on Saturday. “Instead, it is yet another case of President Trump using DEI as a club to eviscerate programs that seek to level our economic playing field.”

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon also slammed the decision in a statement to the Oakland Post. “As a member of the House Small Business Committee who represents multiple CDFIs in CA-12, I believe Trump’s gutting of operations at the Minority Business Development Agency and at the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund is a direct attack on small businesses, communities of color and other underserved communities,” Rep. Simon said. “Both the MBDA and the CDFI Fund were created with bipartisan support to help historically underserved communities and small businesses — and both programs have helped to dramatically change the material realities of people and bolster entrepreneurship in the U.S. There is no logic to this decision. The point is discrimination and cruelty.”