A birthday celebration for the late legendary singer-songwriter and civil rights activist Nina Simone will be held this weekend in her hometown of Tryon. The public is invited to celebrate and to share their ideas about the future of Simone’s birthplace. BPR’s Helen Chickering reports.
Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon in 1933 in Tryon. Her birthplace, a three-room home kept intact by the community, gained national attention in 2017 when it was purchased by four artists from New York, and soon after named a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Fundraising and work to stabilize the exterior of the wooden house has been underway ever since. Tiffany Tolbert is a field officer with the Trust and they’ve been collecting input about the the future of the home. Ideas they’ve heard include everything from keeping it a private residence to creating an artist retreat.
“Something that involves it being a place for artists, musicians to come and create in the spirit of Nina Simone, ideas about interpretive space in terms of the history of Nina Simone and the Waymon family in Tryon - not necessarily a museum format but having it be a place for where her legacy could be interpreted”
Tolbert says Simone’s birthday celebration will kick-off a series of community conversations about the home’s future and they hope to have a feasible plan to present to the public sometime this spring. Helen Chickering BPR news
Nina Simone’s birthday celebration and community information and input session about her home will be held Saturday, February 22, 4-7pm at the Roseland Community Center, 56 Peake St, Tryon, NC
