A look back at the YMI and a shout out to a young man on a mission

I met a young black man on twitter named Timmy Smith. Found him through his twitter handle @SocialLifeAvl. He and I have become friends outside of the twitter community. In fact, Timmy has developed face-to-face personal relationships with many of his twitter friends. Timmy says whatever he feels like saying. He holds nothing back. His blog is called Social Life Times, and you can link to it here: http://www.sociallifetimes.blogspot.com/.

Timmy is on a mission. He was born in Asheville and he loves his community - all of it. Black, white, brown, red, whatever. He wants the races to come together, to make friends and better understand one another's culture. He wants everyone to start talking to each other. He believes there's a lot for us to learn. So a few months ago, he started having conversations on twitter called Drinks & Dialogue, hashtagged #dd. When I learned about them, they were taking place on Sunday evenings at 8 pm, via twitter only.

Since then, Timmy has gradually grown his dialogue from an online community to monthly meetings at various Asheville venues to taking it to the airwaves with such topics as "Why is Asheville Segregated?" It is my opinion, and that of many in Asheville, that Timmy is on to something big. He's leading the way and opening the doors for a much more understanding Asheville.

His conversations sent me back to my Out 'n About archives in hunt of a story we published 13 years ago about the history of the YMI, so here it is. I'm glad Timmy has started these discussions and he and I both enjoy looking back at some Asheville's black history. Timmy, I am oh so proud of you!

The mission of the YMI Cultural Center is to celebrate African American culture & diversity in the community. - http://www.ymicc.org/mission.html

A look back at the YMI – Out ‘n About, Feb. 21, 1997

By Alphie Hyorth

It’s a cold mid-February afternoon. Just over 100 years ago. Seventy representatives of Asheville’s Black community are at a meeting to organize the Young Men’s Institute. They discuss progress in work on the building. The lights aren’t connected yet so the meeting has to take place before sundown; it happens at 4 p.m. They set a time for another meeting of the following week to announce the names of officers and standing committees.

Both the building and the original concept of the YMI have survived to this day through what one might safely call a turbulent history. Today’s YMI Cultural Center is a coalition of African-American churches, civic groups and individuals. The building houses a museum, meeting rooms and offices. A multi-million dollar renovation project, utilizing grants and funds raised locally, was complete in the 1980s and earned statewide recognition for its excellence.

George Washington Vanderbilt would have been proud. It was Vanderbilt who put up the $32,000 for land purchase and construction back in 1892. He funneled some of the artisans from Biltmore House (still under construction at the time) to the YMI work site at the corner of Eagle and Market streets. Richard Sharp Smith, who headed up the architecture department at Biltmore House, drew the plans for the YMI building. Smith’s legacy is in the several buildings he designed downtown that went on to define Asheville’s cityscape for generations to come.

Vanderbilt formed the Young Men’s Institute at the urging of Edward Stephens and “to furnish a much needed society for the advancement of the colored men of Asheville and vicinity,” as Fenton H. Harris wrote in his 1937 Short History and Report of the Young Men’s Institute Inc.

That kind of public-spirited generosity reflected Vanderbilt’s belief that those of his immensely wealthy class must be altruistic. Up to a point anyway. Through two trustees Vanderbilt retained ownership of the building and took back whatever money came in from dues and rent to pay off what he had laid out to get it built. To further cover his investment, “All of the colored men working for the Estate were required to carry memberships with the institute and the dues for the same being taken out of their pay envelopes at the office,” Harris wrote.

The original plan, again, according to Harris, was that once Vanderbilt had been paid back for his generosity ($32,000) he would turn over the building to the community. But things did not quite work out according to plan. As construction on Biltmore House drew to an end in 1895-96, many of the Institute’s members lost their jobs and the Institute lost a ready source of income when those members could no longer afford to pay their dues. This helps to explain a story in the Feb. 13, 1896 edition of the Asheville Daily Citizen which began: “If all the colored men of Asheville showed as much appreciation of the generosity of George Vanderbilt as was shown by the ministers of their race at the Young Men’s Institute last night, then the reports would have been much more satisfactory.”

The occasion was a gathering to celebrate the third anniversary of the YMI and the reports were financial statements which were not good. Between December 1894 and Jan. 1896 the operation lost some $1,200. So Vanderbilt, who was expecting to get back the money he’d spent on the building, was actually putting more and more in as he agreed to cover shortfalls on the budget. On the other hand, the YMI continued to be a great success among the members of the community it was meant to serve. The YMI grew into what we would now call a Community Center. It was a meeting place where civic organizations had social events. It had its own kindergarten, a band and well attended Sunday afternoon performances by local singers.

To his credit, Vanderbilt continued to offer financial support until 1906 when he “decided that the Institution should be self-maintaining,” according to another newspaper story dated June 12, 1906. Vanderbilt announced he wanted to sell the building and he told the community leaders who operated the YMI that he would sell it to them for $10,000, based on a statement by W.J. Trent who ran the YMI from 1900-1911. (A newspaper report states Vanderbilt was asking $12,000 and later lowered the price to $10,000.)

Trent said Vanderbilt gave the group six months to raise the cash after which time he was going to put the building on the open market for $15,000. Time ran out on the offer May 31, 1906 and Trent wrote that the group had raised only $2,500 in contributions. At that point a group of African-American businessmen, professionals, working men and clergy who had joined together to save the institute, borrowed the other $6,500 and bought the building. They paid back the loan making payments of $1,000 a year at a six percent interest.

Over the next several decades, the YMI became the “center of social cultural, civic, commercial and religious life for Black Appalachians.” Its ground floor had space for a drug store, a lunch counter, a funeral parlor and the offices of Dr. James Byron, one of Asheville’s first African-American doctors. It housed the South Market Street branch of the YMCA. Congregations without church buildings worshipped there and the Sunday afternoon song services continued. Nationally known entertainers performed there and the city’s black public library operated at the YMI from 1926 until it was closed in 1966, two years after the Asheville-Buncombe Library System was desegregated. The YMI was recognized as the center from which a black commercial district grew on Eagle and Market streets.

The Institute fell on hard times again beginning in the 1960s and gradual deterioration forced its closing in 1976. It was again rescued by another group of local churches, residents, property owners and merchants who worked to put the property on the National Register of Historic places in 1977. In 1980, a non-profit group calling itself the YMI Cultural Center bought the property for $19,000 and began a $2 million renovation. Through diligent fund raising and with help of several grants the project was completed in 1988.