Sons of Mystro at the Cain Center

Feb. 26. Hundreds of people came out for the Black History Month Celebration at the Cain Center for the Arts on Saturday. It was the best celebration yet and the second one to be held at the Cain Center where the audience seriously got down to music from the Sons of Mystro. who used their violins to interpret classics as well as their own original songs.

Mayor Woody Washam opened the event which was put on by the Smithville Community Coalition (SCC), Cain Center for the Arts and the town’s Parks & Recreation Dept. and hosted by Lisa Mayhew-Jones, chair of the SCC as well as project for the revitalization project.

Lisa Mayhew-Jones

The event was rich with music and culture. Everyone joined in singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and there was a brilliant poetry reading by Mav Smith, Davidson College’s Patricia Cornwell Creative Writing Scholar.

Smithville is the historically Black community just east of I-77 on either side of Catawba Avenue. Smithville was founded in 1910 and is one of the oldest communities and the largest concentration of African Americans in Cornelius, with roots dating back to the 1880s.