YMI Cultural Center

This cultural center was created to preserve the visual and performing arts heritages of African-Americans and other minorities. The Center has an art gallery with over 100 works of art from renowned artists such as Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, John Biggers. It also offers art classes to all age groups.

Preview your trip on the Web: YMI Cultural Center

Learn more

• In the spirit of... (museum visit) This is an integrated unit that focuses on masks in cultures as reflections of individual spirits. This lesson focuses on students' observations of masks while visiting a museum.
• Visit to Ackland Art Museum (African Masks Exhibit) This lesson will focus on the different African masks at the Ackland Art Museum. Students will discuss the different moods and facial expressions of the masks.
• Race and Place: African American Community Histories This site includes material on slavery and emancipation, Reconstruction, and the era of Jim Crow segregation in the South.
• Wrapped in Pride - Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity A website with information about the Ghanaian woven cloth kente, including a glossary with audio pronunciation of African words. This exhibit is a collaboration between the National Museum of African Art and the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture. An activity on the site allows students to click on patterns, placing them in their own designs.

Related pages

• Intrigue of the Past: Teach your students about North Carolina's fascinating past. This edition contains lesson plans about the fundamental concepts, processes, and issues of archaeology, as well as essays for the teacher with detailed information about four periods in North Carolina's ancient history.

Related topics

• Learn more about African heritage, Buncombe County, contemporary African art, and traditional African art.

Legal

This center is a community-based, non-profit organization which seeks to
enhance the cultural and economic lives of residents of Western North Carolina, particularly minority and low-income people. The YMI Cultural
Center focuses on three program areas: Cultural Arts, Economic
Development, and Community Education. The center serves as an educational forum creating greater awareness of the African American cultural heritage and is a center of artistic expression vital to creating and sustaining a strong community.

Permanent exhibits include the In Spirit of Africa with traditional and
contemporary African masks, figurative woodcarvings, beadwork, jewelry, and
textiles, and Forebears & Trailblazers: Asheville’s African American Leaders,
1800s - 1900s with photographs of many of the early leaders of Asheville’s
Black community.

The Center’s Gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Call
the YMI at 828-252-4614 or email: ymicc1@aol.com for information about guided
tours.

A traveling exhibit, African American History Through Stamps, is
available for area schools with stamps representing influential African
American leaders, inventors, educators, scientists, entrepreneurs,
entertainers, and sports figures. The exhibit includes 39 framed enlargements
of commemorative stamps from the Black Heritage series issued by the US Postal Service.