Civil Rights Activist to Open Restaurant in The Midlands
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO)- A Midlands civil rights activist is opening a restaurant filled with people who have left their mark in Columbia, and the world.
“So many people have contributed to American culture that come out of South Carolina,” owner, Kevin Gray said.
Once you walk inside Top Notch BBQ you will immediately feel like you’re inside a museum. The walls are painted with prominent African-American leaders.
“We’re trying to make this a place that everybody will fell comfortable in, but this about black history and it is about a progressive history because most of these people were progressive forward looking people,” Gray said.
Owner Kevin Gray says a lot of the pictures hanging on the wall have been collected over the years.
Gray said once his restaurant opens he wants to share the rich African American history of the state with others.
“The folk on the wall were the first people to desegregate USC, Joseph Vaughn who desegregated Furman, and all of the kids that were able to go over into Rosewood elementary school,” Gray said naming some of the pictures. “All that stuff matters.”
For him this place will be more than a BBQ restaurant, it will become what he calls a “community gathering place,” where you come for the food but, stay for the culture.
“For me the idea is to inspire a different kind of economic development besides this gentrification where you wait to a community runs down, you move people out, you redo the infrastructure, and you move new people in,” Gray said. “Business development doesn’t have to be on one side of town.”
Gray said it’s important for others to know about their history throughout the year, not just in the month of February.
“Being in this place, everyday for me is black history day.”
Gray said the restaurant is expected to open sometime in June.
