JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A need in a part of Jacksonville that's often overlooked is now getting filled.
The Historic Eastside Cultural Center is ready to bring lessons in art, Black history and much more to the Eastside. The woman running it wants it to be a catalyst for new opportunities for young people in the neighborhood.
"There's no cultural center in the Eastside," said Suzanne Pickett, Historic Eastside Community Development Corporation president. "There has not been, to my recollection, for many, many decades."
Pickett changed that. The new Historic Eastside Cultural Center at 920 A. Philip Randolph Boulevard is free and open to the public.
"We're hoping to be like a mini Motown," she said. "I am super excited. This is one of my lifelong dreams is to have a cultural center."
The center features a recording studio, art studios and art exhibit, a studio for jewelry design classes and will have classes and workshops on Black history, foreign language, architecture and more.
"I'm very excited about graphic design, teaching motion graphics," Pickett said. "To youth, mostly youth, but also families."
The center's grand opening was Friday and until April 15 they'll have an art exhibit about the impacts of redlining in Jacksonville's mostly Black and impoverished Eastside. Redlining, now illegal, marked areas where the government would not lend money: Black neighborhoods.
"That's the question that's asked, 'How did the neighborhood get like this? Why hasn't there been any investment into the community?' We felt that it was important as a cultural center and me as an artist to use ours as a catalyst for education."
Pickett says she understands the value of arts education, describing herself as a shy and insecure child until she found art.
"Once I started doing artwork, it just really gave me courage and confidence," Pickett said. "So I understand what that does. I understand what that does for kids, for them to see artists, really great artists that look like me, that look like them."
The cultural center is an opportunity for the Eastside's next generation to paint their neighborhood with more than the color red.
Learn more about the impacts of redlining here.