EAU CLAIRE COMMUNITY COUNCIL, AND COMMUNITY OF SHALOM, Eau Claire-North Columbia, South Carolina

The Eau Claire community is made up of twenty-eight racially diverse and deteriorating neighborhoods just north of Columbia, the state's capitol. The area has gone through dramatic changes since redevelopment and urban renewal efforts uprooted African Americans from their inner-city homes to settle there. Problems with race relations, absentee property owners, discrimination by banks and realtors, inadequate funding for public schools, crime, and indifference on the part of the people who lived there have all contributed to the community's decline. Founded in 1984, the Eau Claire Community Council and the Community of Shalom are two groups working to improve race relations, invigorate property values in the community, and promote pride and self-esteem in its members.

Rev. Cooper preaching on Sunday Gelatin silver print © Eli Reed 1999	Lee Bolton and a Shalom member do yard work as part of their housing rehabilitation effort with the Eau Claire Community of Shalom. Gelatin silver print © Eli Reed 1999

The Eau Claire Community Council is a biracial group dedicated to supporting community interests of both blacks and whites. The Community of Shalom, started by the United Methodist Church, is the Council's faith-based counterpart, an ecumenical effort to build partnerships between churches and community organizations to work on racial understanding and neighborhood prosperity. The two groups effect positive changes in their community through a variety of projects, from political lobbying of local government and enforcing fair housing laws to building new schools and community centers and restoring the homes of the elderly. Their common goals have resulted in community renewal in both material and spiritual terms.

Photographer Eli Reed is known for a frank and direct approach to his subjects as well as for his interest in issues of race and class in America. He has been documenting the black experience since he first began taking photographs sixteen years ago. His images show Reverend Cooper instructing children in church on Sunday, neighborhood scenes of Eau Claire, and home helpers rehabbing a resident's house. Also included is a portrait of civic leader Sam Davis, past president of the Eau Claire Community Council.

Interviewer George King was trained as a documentary filmmaker and works as a writer/producer of nonfiction projects in theater, film, television, and radio. His interviews present the voices of Eau Claire citizens who tell of their sense of pride in their town and of the work that has gone into repairing and rebuilding their community. They discuss Eau Claire's past, as well as its present character, and their personal experiences as residents, black or white. quotation from an interview

http://www.creativephotography.org    This page last updated September 24, 2000.   oncenter@ccp.arizona.edu