Thomas James Reddy

Early life

Reddy was born in Savannah, Georgia, and his family moved to New York City when he was 14. He moved to Charlotte, N.C. in 1964 to study at Johnson C. Smith University and then transferred to University of North Carolina Charlotte where he helped to found the Black Student Union and the African and Afro-American Studies Department. During the 1960s he was active in Civil Rights activities, protesting the Vietnam War and opposing intensive military draft activities in the black community. Reddy received his B.A. in History from University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1974 and a Master's in Education from the same university three years later. In the late 1980s, he studied painting in the Master's of Fine Arts program at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Career

During the time Reddy was actively engaged in the Civil Rights Movement, he and two other African-American activists, James Grant and Charles Parker, visited the Lazy B horse stables. The three had been turned away from the stables because of the color of their skin. One year later, the trio were charged by the federal government in connection with a fire which killed fourteen horses. During the 1972 trial, they were labeled as political terrorists and became known as the Charlotte Three. Reddy was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1974, the two key witnesses "revealed that the federal government had paid them $4,000 each as a "relocation fee" following their testimony against the accused." A series of appeals, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, were denied. In 1979, North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt commuted the sentences and Reddy was paroled. The New York Times columnist Tom Wicker wrote that it was “one more of those vengeful miscarriages of justice by which comfortable society attempted to label urban unrest, racial disorders … and anti-war activity as the work of agitators and terrorists.” A collection of correspondence, legal documents and other material about this period of Reddy's life are archived in The J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

While a student University of North Carolina Charlotte, Reddy was a poetry consultant and associate editor of arts magazine Three. In 1969, he won the LeGette Blythe Creative Writing Award. Among the publications in which his poetry appears are the Red Clay Reader (1969), Southern Poetry Review (1970), A Galaxy of Black Writing (1971), The Hyperion Journal (1975), Miscellany (1974). His poetry has been collected in two books: Less Than a Score, But a Point (Random House’s Vintage Books 1974) and Poems in One Part Harmony (Carolina Wren 1980).

Reddy's artwork as a Social Realist painter that reflect the traditions of the Harlem Renaissance are held in permanent collections at the Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth, Minnesota and University of North Carolina Charlotte's Murrey Atkins Library. His work was on display in a 2013 exhibit on the Civil Rights Movement at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, N.C. A solo exhibition of his work was held in 2014 at the St. Helena (SC). York W. Bailey Museum at Penn Center. Reddy's murals continue to adorn walls in around Charlotte, his longtime home. He was commissioned to paint "Remembrances of Charlotte's Second Ward: Brooklyn and Blue Heaven" at the Charlotte Convention Center. In fact, the convention center was built in what had been a tradition African American neighborhood. Reddy's mural depicts the values and lives of the African Americans who once lived at that very site.

Among the instruments that Reddy plays in performances is the kalimba, an ancient African instrument, that the artist has said directs him on an subconscious level.

List of Accomplishments

From 1967 to 1969: Resident Manager & Project Director, Charlotte Urban Ministry’s Tenth Street Community Youth Center

From 1969 to 1972: Writer for the Charlotte Observer.

From 1978 to 1979: North Carolina Arts Coalition

1979: Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte

From 1980-1981: Free Lance Artists

From 1982: Owner Operator of the Ready Art Shoppe

Publications

Reddy's poetry is included in several publications: The Red Clay Reader (1969), Southern Poetry Review (1970), A Galaxy of Black Writing (1971), The Hyperion Journal (1975), Miscellany (1974), and Eleven Charlotte Poets (1971).

Two books of poetry: Less Than a Score, But a Point (1974) and Poems in One Part Harmony (1979).

Consultant and Coordinator of various art publications and curricula:

Co-editor of Aim, A Community Arts publication (1970);

Co-author and co-director of "The Highlights of our Heritage

Presenter of African history at Johnson C. Smith University (1971).

Selected Exhibits

1991 Spirit Square, First Union Gallery, Charlotte, N.C.

1992 Front Gallery and Community Arts Council, Asheville N.C.

1992 Randall Gallery, Wilmington, N.C.

1992 African American Atelier Gallery, Greensboro, N.C.

1993 Dana Gallery, Loyola University, New Orleans, L.A.

1994 Josten's Learning National Conference of Black Educators, Los Angeles, C.A.

1994 National Association of Black Supervisors and Educators (NABSE) conference, Houston, TX and Los Angeles, C.A.

1995 Elon College Gallery of Art, Elon College, N.C.

2000 "Shades of Diversity," Cape Fear Studio, Fayetteville, N.C.

2001 Lincoln Arts Cultural Center, Lincolnton, N.C.

2002 "Tracing Your Family History," Museum of the New South, Charlotte, N.C.

2000 University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Rowe Art Gallery

2000 Afro-American Cultural Center, Charlotte, N.C.

2001 St. Joseph's Historic Foundation, Hayti Heritage Center, Lyda Moore Merrick Gallery, Durham, N.C.

2013 Civil Rights Exhibit, Levine Center for the New South, Charlotte, N.C.

2014 Solo exhibition, York W. Bailey Museum at Penn Center, St. Helena, S. C.

Awards

Recipient of the Kwanja Award for Creativity (1978)

Recipient of the North Carolina Conference of Black Studies Service Award.