Diggs Gallery (Winston-Salem State University)

James Thackeray "T" Diggs, Jr. graduated from Winston-Salem State in 1934, then spent the rest of his working life there — as a painter, a professor for more than forty years, and the man who designed the buildings standing on campus. The university's account preserves his philosophy, held for forty-five years: "Art is a means of expressing, creating, doing your own thing, and being liberated." He died in 1989. That same year, Gordon Hanes, Jr. — whose family helped build this city's tobacco and textile fortunes — remembered a friendship with Diggs and created a gallery in his name.

That act of remembrance became one of North Carolina's largest exhibition spaces dedicated to African and African Diaspora art. The gallery mounts between ten and fifteen exhibitions a year, roughly half curated in-house. More than ninety percent of the permanent African American collection arrived as donated gifts. Hanes himself gave a collection of works on paper. The campus collection also holds a sculpture garden and the Biggers murals, named for muralist John Biggers.

Winston-Salem State — founded in 1892 as one of the region's oldest historically Black institutions — has long been serious about what it puts on its walls. The gallery, recognized as one of the top African American galleries in its region, keeps every exhibition free and open to the public.

The doors are closed now. The gallery is scheduled to reopen in early 2026 at 601 South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, in the O'Kelly Library. That's your window — a room built on a friendship, holding work most of which someone chose to give away. Worth the wait.