By Cameron Lee
January 28, 2026
After nearly four years, the Levine Museum of the New South has found a new home in South End, bringing much-needed culture to the area at the corner of South Boulevard and East Boulevard.
The museum, which was founded in 1990 from a shared idea between Sally Dalton Robinson, a philanthropist and civic leader, and Anne Batten, a longtime elementary-school teacher and chairman of the Mecklenburg Historical Society, was created to tell stories of the post-Civil War era in Charlotte and North Carolina, exploring diverse histories of race, labor, and social change that were often overlooked.
Originally founded as the Museum of the New South, it was renamed the Levine Museum of the New South after Family Dollar founder Leon Levine, following a $1 million gift from the Leon Levine Foundation that helped relaunch the museum in its permanent Uptown home in 2001 at 200 East Seventh Street.
The museum, which sold the Uptown property in 2022 for $10.75 million to a New York developer planning luxury apartments on the site, has now found its permanent home at 1800 South Boulevard, after temporarily operating out of Three Wells Fargo Center until May of last year.
The museum will be a welcome addition to a neighborhood that has undergone rapid gentrification over the past decade, within walking distance of longtime restaurants and retail spaces such as 300 East, Thai Taste, and Paper Skyscraper. The 0.57-acre property, purchased from Grace Covenant Church, will include two buildings totaling approximately 10,000 square feet.
Best known for its Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers exhibition, which details Charlotte’s transformation from a post-Civil War cotton economy to a modern banking and business hub, the museum earned recognition for its community-centered forums and dialogue-driven events, highlighting marginalized voices and using history to strengthen the city’s identity on topics such as race relations, civil rights, and modernization.
“This new campus represents a bold step forward for the Museum and for Charlotte,” said Dr. Richard Cooper, President and CEO of the Levine Museum of the New South. “It will be more than a museum — it will be a gathering space where history sparks conversation and where diverse perspectives come together to explore what the New South has been and what it is becoming.”
The museum will work with architecture studio Pickard Chilton to guide the site’s transformation through its phases of development. Additional details about the project, timeline, and programming will be shared in the near future, according to the museum.
In the meantime, the Levine Museum will continue its in-person and digital programming, along with community engagement events, until the new South End campus officially opens.
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