Linda Shropshire honors her heritage and embraces her creative journey at this the cultural hub in the heart of Black Wall Street
By Leah Paige | Photo by John Michael Simpson
The commercial district of Parrish Street was a site of Black community building in the late 1800s, where Black entrepreneurs provided essential businesses for their patrons. Today, Linda Shropshire carries on the legacy of Black Wall Street in the heart of downtown at Ella West Gallery.
An NC State alumna, Linda originally had her heart set on becoming a veterinarian, but her creative instincts eventually led her in another direction. She moved from Raleigh to Durham in 1995. “I realized [Durham] was … a place of inclusion, a place of belonging,” Linda says. Here, she raised her two daughters, Taylor Grissom and Sydney Grissom, who graduated from Jordan High School and Durham Academy Upper School, respectively. She worked at Cisco Systems Inc. for several years before it went through a restructuring in 2020; she took advantage of the opportunity, deciding to step back from the company and instead pursue her master’s in business administration at UNC. She says she has “been a student of learning ever since.”
It was during her classwork that the notion of a gallery began to form – “It’s something I had buried deep for a long time,” she says. “By the time I got to a critical mass, where I’d done some marketing, accounting and operations work on this fictional gallery, along comes this opportunity of a lifetime for a space – where? – on Black Wall Street, my dream location. I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, am I ready? I have to be ready.’ Sometimes the opportunity presents itself, and you have to take a leap of faith.”
The building at 104 W. Parrish St. – which formerly housed Seven Stars Cycles – was acquired by Amos Cooper Jr. of Black Robin Ventures, Linda’s good friend and “co-collaborator.” “Immediately I could see the possibility,” Linda says. “With that enthusiasm, I told Amos I would commit to the property. We put together a letter of intent that Amos was able to take to bankers and investors to anchor his position for funding. It was a win-win. I am forever grateful for the timing, and for Amos, who believed in my dream. We like to say, ‘We are taking back Black Wall Street.’”
Linda is not alone in her decisions and greatly relies on what she likes to call her “kitchen table cabinet,” a group of four women steeped in the art and business world: Teka Selman, cultural and contemporary art advisor; Jes Averhart, author, career development speaker and creator of the Reinvention Road Trip; Michelle Lanier, historian, folklorist and current director of the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites; and Carly Jones, CEO of Artspace. With the gathered experiences from her trusted advisory board and curated financial planning, Linda opened Ella West on Aug. 19, 2023.
Linda continues to build relationships while meeting photographers, speaking with artists, consulting with curators and planning future exhibitions – the next, “Holding Space: Dreams and Memories,” will debut June 21 and focus on the work of few major female artists: Julia Rivera, Isabel Lu and Toni Scott. The exhibit spans a range of media, subjects and symbols, with each artist taking their own approach to ritual, self definition and challenges to the status quo as they investigate the embodied experiences of migration, intergenerational tradition, institutional exclusion and gender variance. It runs through September 21.
Linda’s mission is to uplift marginalized voices and bridge intergenerational gaps through the collection and admiration of art in all of its mediums. The most recent exhibit – which was on display through mid-April – is a prime example: “Stephen Hayes: Reclaiming the Discarded” was a collection of artist and Duke University professor Stephen Hayes’ works depicting the adverse effects of capitalism and consumerism and the true implications of transatlantic slave trade, embodying themes meant to shift the cultural perceptions of Black subjectivity. On March 1, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Ella West Gallery along with Gov. Roy Cooper and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Treasury Wally Adeyemo to view the showcase as a part of the administration’s Investing in America tour aimed at supporting small businesses.
The gallery itself is named after Linda’s mother, Ella Wynn Douthit, now 83, who was often called only by her middle name, “West.” She, too, was an entrepreneur at heart who, as a single mother, went back to school, got her associate degree and went on to own and operate a successful hair salon. “I inherited a work ethic that is generations deep,” Linda says. “My mother gave me the ability to put love at the center of my life. And so, I wanted to look at that … every single day. When I am doing business, it’s a reminder that I want to put people over transactions, and community above and beyond anything else. That is Ella West.”
