The new $5.5 million ZerNona S. Black Multi-Generational Cultural/Community Center opened Wednesday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by community members and dignitaries attuned to the history and present-day needs of San Antonio’s East Side.
Rev. Willie Culpepper of the adjoining Mount Zion First Baptist Church opened the ceremony with a prayer, followed by Mayor Ron Nirenberg and a host of speakers including the center’s board chair, James Keown; Krystal Jones, executive director of the city’s Department of Arts and Culture; Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4) and state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins.
“Community centers are a foundational component of the East Side, serving as a conduit for community building, for educational achievement, for leisure opportunities and so much more,” Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) said during his comments at the podium.
The 10,000-square-foot center will serve as a home for after-school programs and as a senior center, with the capacity for adult education classrooms and hosting community events.
It is named in honor of ZerNona Stewart Black, a St. Philip’s College educator and civil rights activist who died in 2005 and was renowned for her community work with seniors, including originating the early Mt. Zion Meals On Wheels program.
“I wasn’t sure if I walked into a new multipurpose center, multigenerational center, or an art museum. This is a beautiful space,” Nirenberg said of the new building designed by Lake Flato architects.
Linking past to future
Behind the speakers, a new 26-foot-long mural painted by San Antonio artist Ronney Stevens presented a visual collage of the city’s Black history, from NAACP members protesting segregation in front of the Bexar County Courthouse running through the integration of the downtown Woolworth’s dining counter and the creation of Hemisfair through a depiction of the new Tourism, Hospitality, and Culinary Arts Center of Excellence building on the St. Mary’s University campus named in honor of activist and St. Philip’s College founder Artemisia Bowden.
Stevens said the painted mural moves from black-and-white imagery on the left, a representation of the stark color divide of the segregation era, to full color on the right, linking the city’s past to its future.
Outside, overlooking the building’s plaza, another mural presents several images of ZerNona Black, who joins her spouse Rev. Claude W. Black in having a city community center named after her.
Stevens was selected for the murals in part because not only is he an Eastside native, he grew up living on the very block upon which the community center now stands, neighbor to now-closed Frederick Douglass Elementary School, which he attended as a child.
“Some of my first art was created right here,” Stevens said, pointing to the spot near the mural on which he stood. He was drawn to Greek mythology books in the Carver Library and drew images of comic book hero Thor on brown paper lunch bags.
Centering community input
Jones said the city’s budget for the dual murals was $100,000, and that community input was a central component not only in the selection of the artist but in the content the murals would present to community center visitors.
“People wanted a really big focus on history,” Jones said, and artists selected for public art projects are asked to work through ideas with community members as their projects progress.
Eastside resident Garletta Dean thanked Stevens for his murals and said she appreciates how he wove icons of the neighborhood’s history into one encompassing image.
Recalling how she and other Black San Antonians were forced by Jim Crow segregation laws to use a separate entrance at the Majestic, Aztec and Texas theatres downtown and use balcony seating away from whites, Dean said, “San Antonio has come a long, long way” from those days, and she appreciates how Stevens “depicted the exact history of the East Side and of the Black community.”
Images for the mural were lent to Stevens by Charles Williams, proprietor of the Williams Historical Museum nearby on Hackberry Street, and student Carlos Moore — whose signature Stevens insisted accompany his on the mural — helped provide a digital collage of the images for the artist to paint from.
The historical images include the facade of nearby Cuney Elementary School, the crest of the 40-year-old San Antonio Ethnic Art Society, the rollicking Keyhole Club where singers such as Nat King Cole would perform, the once-segregated Cameo Theater and once-thriving Tucker’s Lounge.
‘You can’t stop God’
During his comments to the assembled crowd, Mt. Zion Pastor Otis Mitchell said it’s remarkable that the new community center even exists, listing several challenges the project faced since its approval in the 2017-2022 bond election, including the COVID-19 pandemic and related supply chain issues, the failure of an early contractor to complete work and a cost more than double initial projections.
“You may stop me, but you can’t stop God,” Mitchell said. “We believed, we prayed and we kept the faith. … We hoped for it, and here it is. God did this,” he intoned, drawing enthusiastic applause. “Y’all, that’s right. Won’t he do it? Yes, he will.”
Mitchell said the center is now in the hands of the surrounding community. “This is the beginning of a new and great adventure,” he said. “This beautiful building … is a mandate and a clarion call to all of us to meet the needs of the East Side.”
Calvert followed Mitchell to say that, with the incoming presidential administration, community centers will be key to maintaining connections to health care, education, food assistance for children and veterans services.
“Let us honor ZerNona Black’s legacy by ensuring that this space serves as a foundation for hope and progress in the most challenging times, no matter the forces working against us,” Calvert said to an enthusiastic round of applause.
