The Franklinton Center at Bricks continually builds on lessons learned from our past. As such, we create programs with forward vision that are relevant to the global struggles on justice and equality that we face today. Everyone who steps onto our grounds is welcomed home.
Our program pillars focus on living up to the legacy of our ancestors and our predecessor institutions by serving the people of our community, through four program areas:
1. CENTER FOR RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION, & ENGAGEMENT
Franklinton Center at Bricks works alongside local community leaders to build, develop, plan, and thrive through Resiliency and Mutual Aid. Our vital services to rural Eastern North Carolina engages our commitment to help residents grow and thrive. Through partnerships with local towns, schools, communities and individuals FCAB identifies pressing concerns and works to develop and implement initiatives that address expressed community needs.
We partner with healthcare organizations based in Eastern NC. Whose missions include helping patients with complex health issues and limited incomes.
Our Just Food Project grows and provides fresh produce to address food insecurity of thousands of low-wealth families in eastern rural North Carolina through a community distribution system. The distribution system includes local churches, community nonprofit organizations, municipalities, schools, and individuals.
Oasis in the Desert works to provide solidarity convenings and gatherings that bring rural LGBTQ BIPOC into relationship: to build, to strategize, and to extend solidarity efforts across issues, identities, and geographies. An oasis is a refuge in which we can retreat, escape, gather… our oasis offers safe/brave/bold haven in and through an intentional community.
Respite is offered, allowing us to wash away the trappings and disguises required in the larger community. These gatherings are intentionally small to allow the opportunity to build trust, to hear each other’s stories, and learn how best to serve as a soft landing place for each other. In the midst of the desert around us, Oasis in the Desert is a hopeful presence in the midst of a world that requires that we be resilient.
We have continued to gather in virtual convenings that are inclusive of rural Southern relationships. And, we continue creating an outdoor space at FCAB that serves as a beacon of our continued commitment to this work.
2. CENTER FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Recognizing that 75% of Black families in the counties surrounding FCAB can trace their roots and lineage to the land and center, from enslavement in the 1600s to today, this Pillar seeks to elevate this history through the story of the land, the multiple roles Franklinton Center at Bricks has play in the lives of residents in a 150 year liberation journey and to guarantee that the story is told by the community, as well as returning ownership of artifacts and documents stored elsewhere to the FCAB archive.
The FCAB Museum & Library continues to receive select books and materials by invitation from individuals for inclusion in our collections.
Our leaders have worked to rewrite the history of the United Church of Christ asserting that “The story of the Afro-Christian Convention is one of faith, survival, and empowerment in the hostile environment of racism. From 1892 to the 1960s, the Afro-Christian Convention was composed of 150 churches and 25,000 members, located primarily in North Carolina and Virginia. In June 1957, when the founding/merging leaders of the new United Church of Christ processed through Cleveland, representation of the Afro-Christian Convention churches was folded into the representation of the Convention of the South—a 1950s initiative of the Congregational Christian denomination to fold Black churches of the South into a single conference.”
We continue to provide tours to visitors including a group of 14 members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA) who are members of the Chi Omega Chapter located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. On December 19, 1925, Anna Easter Brown (with the assistance of Jessie B. Thornton), organized the Chi Omega Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA), which was established at Brick School – now the FCAB campus. After graduating from Columbia University, Ms. Brown taught and lived at the Bricks School in Bricks, North Carolina, from 1909 to 1926. During her time in Bricks, she also traveled nationally and wrote articles for the National Urban League‘s magazine Opportunity.
3. CENTER FOR LAND-BASED INNOVATION
The 245 acres that FCAB occupies sustains local and regional residents in several ways. As a resiliency hub it is the center of support, communications and distribution of resources, including freshly grown produce. Building on its role in emergency management which escalated during the COVID pandemic FCAB will increase its engagement in environmental mitigation of the climate crisis, promoting food sovereignty, and social equity in order to create and strengthen the conditions for community self-determination, social connection and success before during and after the inevitable disruptions the climate crisis promises to bring.
Water-Accessed Camping Platform located on the Fishing Creek, an important tributary of the Tar River that is part of the Tar Pamlico River System. Along with other locations, the FCAB Camping Platform is supported by the Tar Pamlico River Foundation – Sound Rivers Water Trail. Along with other locations, our platform is a major component of a program that promotes ecotourism, educates local citizens about the area’s abundant natural resources, and exposes people to aspects of the river/estuary that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Bricks Healthy Lifestyles: incorporates the use of our land and our history. To that end, we offer opportunities for our community to engage with the land in order to safely move our bodies – Exercise, Dance, Walking/Hiking, River Access.
4. SOCIAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE AND RETREAT CENTER
This pillar leverages resources and assets to empower people through training and education. Each year Franklinton Center at Bricks hosts thousands of guests from a variety of organizations including social justice advocates, nonprofits, schools, foundations, faith groups, municipalities, and families. The Center provides welcoming facilities and meeting spaces and offers responsive, innovative, and community-centered social justice programs that promote resilience and growth.
Immersion Experiences connect diverse groups from around the world to FCAB’s community by helping them to become immersed in the social, cultural, and economic realities of the people who live in the surrounding communities. Using tours, presentations, field trips, and work projects, the immersion experiences provide opportunities to educate and engage participants around the issues faced by residents living in the region. Our local programs are often amplified by deepened relationships developed through our Social Justice Conferences & Retreats.
Here are some workshops we offer:
- Tour and History Convening
- Land, Art, and Refuge
- Grief Healing Circles
- Healing Rage Workshop
- Racial Justice Conveningst
Here is a sampling of our Community Offerings:
- The Annual Martin Luther King Celebration
- The Annual Phillips/Bricks Alumni Association Reunion
- The Community Empowerment Alliance Meetings
- The Rocky Mount Area Brick Club Meetings
- Whitakers Jr. Police Academy
- Small Farmer’s Support: Trainings, Conferences, Retreats
- Percel O. Alston Institute
Contribute to Our Growth!
Franklinton Center at Bricks (FCAB) builds upon the lessons of history by creating forward looking programs that are relevant to the global struggle for justice and equality. FCAB has a rich and varied past, with many names and uses. Today it is a conference center where local, regional, national and international justice advocates, leaders and truth seekers continue to learn and do the work needed to transform lives. Your generous contributions support the life of Franklinton Center at Bricks and our community.
