Walter E. Massey ‘58, president emeritus of Morehouse (second to left), and President Robert M. Franklin ‘75 (third from right) together cut the ribbon for The Ray Charles Performing Arts Center and Music Academic Building. Also pictured are (l-r) Retired Lt. Gen. James Hall ‘57; Joe Adams, chairman of the board of the Ray Charles Foundation; Valerie Ervin, president of the Ray Charles Foundation, C.D. Moody of C.D. Moody Construction; and Andre Bertrand ‘79, Morehouse vice president for Campus Operations.
music laboratory) The Ray Charles Center is a monument to the College’s commitment to enhance its liberal arts curriculum. The structure itself is a portrait of newness with broad strokes of the past. Its modern, artistic elements of light-colored stone accents, glass walls and cathedral ceilings are tempered by architectural features that link it to the traditional redbrick bar accents and columns of buildings on the Century Campus. With its location on the corner of Joseph P. Lowery Boulevard and West End Avenue, The Ray Charles Center not only expands the campus southward, but also is positioned to become a cultural hub for the historic West End community. Within six months of its opening, The Ray Charles Center has hosted poet Nikki Giovanni, musician Peter Buffett, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the 2011 Bennie and Candle honorees (among them Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman and baseball legend Frank Robinson) on its Emma and Joe Adams Concert Hall stage. Further, it’s home to the Morehouse College Glee Club—and who better than the sharply dressed members of the Glee Club represent Renaissance Men and Franklin’s ubiquitously displayed Five Wells? MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE
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And let’s not forget The Ray Charles Center’s namesake--a legend of a man who parsed and remixed music genres in ways that created sounds so original, so spellbinding that he was dubbed “The Genius.”
A Blind Man’s Vision TEN YEARS AGO, Ray Charles was performing in Atlanta when his business manager Joe Adams (the same Joe Adams for whom the Emma and Joe Adams Public Service Institute is named) convinced him to drop by Morehouse for an impromptu set with the Morehouse College Jazz Ensemble. It was the beginning of a beautiful—and
Ray Charles performs with the Morehouse College Jazz Ensemble in 2001.
bountiful—friendship. That year, Morehouse honored Charles with both a Candle Award for Lifetime Achievement in Arts and Entertainment and an honorary doctor of humane letters. Charles, along with Adams, reciprocated with a $1-million gift, which was seed funds for the building. A year later, Charles gave another $1-million gift, effectively sealing his commitment to help find, educate and inspire the next generation of music pioneers. Since then, the College has received an additional $3 million from the Ray Charles Foundation. Blinded at age six and raised in abject poverty, Charles’ lifework defied the limitations wrought by his physical and environmental conditions. No, let’s make that decimated. His good friend, music mogul Quincy Jones, said at a Morehouse fundraiser for the Center held in Hollywood, Calif., only months after Charles’ death in 2004, that Ray Charles was blind only around pretty girls, “bumping into things” to draw their attention and sympathy. Otherwise, the fiercely independent Charles shopped, traveled, even flew a fleet of his own planes. As impressive as that is—turn’s out his vision was even more incredible. He handpicked Morehouse as the perfect venue to realize his dream of educating young musicians. “My only regret is that [Charles] is not here to share this moment,” said Uzee Brown Jr. ’72, chairman of the Department of Music, during the groundbreaking for the building, “because it was his vision that brought this magnificent facility in the realm of reality.” Brown also evoked the memories of Wendell Whalum ’52 and Kemper Harreld, two Morehouse music giants who also had dreamed of a facility like The Ray Charles Center. The arts at Morehouse “will finally have a home of their own with a firm foundation … so that musical minds can grow,” he said. ■