Art has many influences that are invokative of change in one form or another. The most direct change that art brings about is obviously that of altering art itself. Art is a forever changing form of expression, that is continually influenced by the styles, techniques and concepts of previous art. Art also changes the way society advertises, decorates and dresses. But does art have the power to change society’s thoughts, actions, and behaviors as a whole? I believe that the answer is yes, and that Black Mountain College, through the influence of art, changed Asheville into the freethinking mecca that it is today.

In 1933, John Rice, and many of his supporting colleagues were dismissed from their positions at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. The Great Depression made it difficult for them to find new jobs, so they decided to start a school that would change the current structure of education. Robert Wunsch, who had previously taught in Asheville, found a site for the school that was complete with existing buildings. The YMCA currently occupied the Blue Ridge Assembly buildings during the summer, but during the remainder of the year they were now to be kno

wn as the Black Mountain College. In June of 1937, the college purchased the Lake Eden property, and by 1941 they had moved the school to this site.

The predominantly northern and foreign faculty was also an issue to the local people. The locals were not inviting of strangers, or of people with opinions that differed from theirs. The students and faculty at Black Mountain were both. This caused much conflict. Although the democratically operated college took an apolitical standpoint, it quickly acquired a Communist reputation, both externally and within. Many complaints about the school led to frequent investigations by the FBI. This growing reputation, both escalated local suspicions, and made recruiting students and raising money very difficult.

The local people were very devout Christian fundamentalists with very conservative views, and their part of the country was known as the “Bible Belt.” In the “Bible Belt” the segregation of blacks and whites was set in stone, and when the Black Mountain College started its program of integration, the locals were not happy. This idea of integration was brought about after the college held a series of discussions about problems in the South, and segregation was put at the top of the list. They knew that this must be a discreet process, for publicity would only further damage the reputation of the college and the situation of the local blacks. In 1947, with five black students enrolled, the integration program was deemed a success. The campus community warmly accepted the black students and faculty, but the people of Asheville were a sharp reminder to them that segregation was still the way of the South. During this time, there were a number of fires that had been set in the surrounding woods on the property, all of which were believed to have been started by outraged locals.

Some topics in this essay:
Mountain College, Joseph Albers’s, Black Mountain, Art Art, Jewish German, Mountain College’s, Robert Wunsch, black mountain, Florida Depression, Mountain Education, Lake Eden, black mountain college, mountain college, students faculty, art art, campus community, integration program, local people, “bible belt”, influence art, black students,