The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center

The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is home to the African American cultural aesthetic, an oasis and incubator for Black creativity on all levels. We focus on the making of art, the keeping of community, living Black history, and the ongoing generational celebration of music, poetry, dance, theatre, the culinary arts, and other community-building and life-sustaining activities. We will always keep an open space for radical, inclusive community conversations.

The Finney Center is the outcome of the vision of a group of community minded artists, activists and art-lovers who saw the transformative possibilities of this space in the Waverly Historic District and set out to create a for Black art and culture. We are an emerging wellspring for visual, performing, and literary arts, culinary experiences, community activities, and a welcoming gathering place for all.

Our building, a decommissioned 1940's tobacco warehouse straddling the Robert Mills and Waverly Historic Districts, is a stone's throw from the railroad tracks in the heart of Columbia's African American community. It was repurposed in the 1960's for the Southern Electric Company, which closed during the Covid epidemic. There's no better symbol of our mission than the illuminating power of light. Our work is guided by the radiance of the folks who came before us, whose presence and creative spirits are the electricity that fuels our work.

Our mission is to use that power to bring our community together and use art's monumental capacity to transform lives and create the world we all desire, one guided by truth and beauty even in the face of hard-headed trouble and social turmoil.

Testimonials

"I had a very profound experience at the Finney Center's Soul: An Ancestor Workshop with Marlanda Dekine, MSW, Poet. My fellow participants were from all over SC, and we sat in community while writing and sharing our origin stories. We also had time to listen to Marlanda's intensely beautiful poetry and develop our own "messy memory work".

I still read the writings I composed at the session and especially the sacred letter from my ancestor that formed from my meditations and active spiritual listening. I am grateful that this center provided people of color a chance to participate in generational healing and transformative justice here in Columbia, SC."

Ann H.N. McBride