Since 1988, the Historic Resources Commission of Asheville & Buncombe County (HRC) has given their annual award, the Sondley Award, which recognizes an individual or individuals in the community whom by word or deed has kindled among the citizenry an appreciation of local history or historic resources. This year, the HRC is pleased to award Ms. Andrea Clark in recognition of her photographs of the Valley Street neighborhood in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Ms. Clark captured the residents as they lived, worked and gathered together before and during the upheaval of urban renewal that ultimately decimated her own family’s home and the roads, homes and businesses of her neighbors. Her lens recorded an unpleasant part of Asheville’s past that is important for all to see and remember.
Congratulations and thank you to Ms. Clark on a lifetime of documenting this important part of our collective story!