Aesop has nothing on the Levine Museum of the New South.  Both demonstrate the power of story-telling, not just to entertain, but to enlighten and instruct in a world often lacking in moral clarity.

Some say museums have lost their relevancy in today’s fast-paced, ADD world.  But the Levine in Charlotte demonstrates with its new exhibit that when a museum focuses on people’s stories and then challenges visitors to consider the relevancy to today’s hot-button issues, it not only becomes a part of a community’s social fabric, it also helps  mold it.  By facilitating listening, contemplation and two-way dialogues, a museum becomes a community builder.

That is just the role the Levine is playing with the exhibit COURAGE: The Carolina Story That Changed America. This nationally-acclaimed exhibit is returning to the museum that created it and first showed it in 2004.  The Knight Foundation is one of the organizations providing the support to make this possible.

But the topic remains even more relevant in 2011.  It is the story of the De Laine Family and their fellow black residents of Clarendon County, S.C., who came together more than 50 years ago to bring one of the five suits that made up Brown v. Board of Education to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The exhibit is not just a collection of facts and a bit of paraphernalia. We hear the story of what happened from the De Laine children through audio and video clips.  We see the faces of their neighbors who filed the suit with them. We are vividly reminded – or made aware of for the first time – what is was like to be poor and black in the rural South of the 1950s.

Those of us in the media who got a sneak peak last week were fortunate to be shown through the exhibit by museum historian Tom Hanchett. He is passionate about what the exhibit could accomplish. “It is by hearing each other’s stories, learning about each other’s life experiences, that a community is built,” he told us. “By talking about history, we can begin to talk about the hot-button issues of the current day that may be too difficult or painful to discuss directly.”

In a city like Charlotte, where the schools are becoming resegragted and the school system faces massive budget cuts and layoffs, the need for such conversations is great, if not dire. “We have to ask ourselves – what is the meaning of equal education in the 21st century?” Hanchett says.

Levine Museum of the New South, 200 E. Seventh St., Charlotte, N.C.,  704.333.1887,  www.museumofthenewsouth.org Open Monday – Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm; Sunday, noon- 5 pm. Admission: $6 for adults; $5 for seniors and students