Disco Demolition in Chicago: This Date in History

  • Thread starter Thread starter donbosco
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 855
  • Views: 42K
  • Off-Topic 
IMG_8726.jpeg

Paul Green is a mysterious Tar Heel to me. The more I know of him the deeper seems the well of unknowns. Historically he has stood as a symbol of North Carolina and my Alma Mater but if the truth be told he is mostly forgotten. Even in Chapel Hill, his home for decades, how many can identify much more about him than a theater bearing his name and an outdoor drama? Maybe a few more can add that his Activism on Race challenged the White Supremacist Status Quo of his time. What was his time anyway?

Green was born in Lillington, NC - #DeepHarnett County - in 1894 — and he passed away at his home in Chatham County, NC in 1981. Yep, Chatham County - Old Lystra Road in fact - today his house, built in the 1890s and originally the Windy Oaks Inn, has returned to the hospitality world and is now known as The Old Lystra Inn.

I’ve seen ‘The Lost Colony’ of course & even read some of his writings. I know he spoke on behalf of Free Speech and against The Right-Wing Speaker Ban in the early 1960s. He collaborated with the African American author Richard Wright in a Chapel Hill still hung up on the Old South. That partnering was a complicated chapter in both his and Wright’s life, and one itself fraught with tension born of race in the region. Green questioned his own feelings and actions during that time for the rest of his life. Read more in-depth about how Wright, Green, Orson Wells, and Robert Houseman struggled with race, art, and personalities in the 1941 stage production of Wright’s novel, ‘Native Son,’ here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26476879?seq=21

#OTD in 1981 Dramatist and Human Rights Activist Paul Green died - his was a life tied to North Carolina and teaching at UNC. He created outdoor dramas like ‘The Lost Colony’ and his race-honest play ‘Abraham’s Bosom’ won a Pulitzer Prize in 1927.

‘The Lost Colony’ opened in 1937 and was aimed at fostering a spirited response to The Great Depression by trumpeting a ‘can-do’ attitude of exploration and settlement. Unfortunately in the process real critiques of European Imperialism and Land Theft went by the wayside. Today, that outdoor drama is undergoing a re-working more in line with reality. For more on that read here: Cast In a New Light

The complexity of the life lived by Green is increasingly highlighted as historians, activists, and society at large grapple with past reality cast against mythologized misremembering. He was an artist of great skill with a vision of a better future but also a man bounded by obstacles that blocked his foresight in ways of which even he was unaware. He does seem to have tried to see through the curtain of regressive thinking and acting - his late-life lamentations about the fitful working relationship that he and Wright held show that. Examining Green’s life challenges us to more fully understand the past and the trials experienced by agents of change - feet of clay and all.

A bit more on Green: Acclaimed Dramatist Paul Green
 
‪#OTD in 1972 finger-pickin’ Bluesman #RevGaryDavis died. S.C.-born, he lived in #AVL, then #Durham where he helped birth the ‘Bull City Blues.’ #Raleigh came next then #NYC where he was, thankfully, often recorded. Reverend Gary Davis, Durham Blues Legend. ‬ ‪He played w/Blind Boy Fuller & taught Jorma, Weir, & Bromberg while influencing Taj Majal, Garcia, Dylan & Ry Cooder. Davis made many songs popular, including ‘Samson & Delilah.”

At The link: https://youtu.be/ZNDrLiJl88w ‬
 
On May 5, 1862 a small, ill-equipped, and inexperienced Mexican army defeated a well-armed and powerful army of French invaders in Puebla. Mexican conservatives had backed the foreign forces in their own hopes of ousting from power the liberal government of Benito Juarez. Conservatives colluding with foreign forces in betrayal of their nation -- sound familiar? Please feel welcome to deepen this superficial commentary if you have an inkling)

Batalla_de_Puebla.png

El Día de la Batalla de Puebla by Francisco P. Miranda, 1872
 
needmorevictorybell said:
Happy Cornell 5-8-77 Day to all the Dead Heads
Click to expand...




Minglewood Blues ... (AUD splice provides beginning of track) Loser El Paso They Love Each Other Jack Straw Deal Lazy Lightning ... Supplication (Aud Splice during transition)Brown Eyed Women Mama Tried Row Jimmy Dancin' In the Streets -Set 2- Take A Step Back/Tuning Scarlet Begonias ... Fire on the Mountain Estimated Prophet Tuning/Dead Air Saint Stephen ... Not Fade Away ... Saint Stephen ... Morning Dew -Encore- One More Saturday Night




And in case anyone is interested: From the Wayback Machine, "The Annotated Grateful Dead"
 
Growing up I just knew Chapel Hill was in my future. Coach Smith got me on the ‘Front Porch’ with his teams but the planetarium was my first real town/gown experience. Literally on Franklin Street, forever to be MY Main Street, it bridged the chasm between a world I recognized and one I dreamed about. Morehead Planetarium WAS the gateway to my tomorrow quite literally & if they think back I suspect that thousands will remember a similar expansion of their own universe transpired with that first school field trip. I’ll leave the memories of other types of ‘expansion’ that coincided with the Laser Light Rock Shows for later. I’ve gravitated back to the spot over the years - a town ground zero of sorts for me, from the coolest gift shop, the orrery (now gone: The Morehead Planetarium’s Orrery Is Gone but Not Forgotten | Our State ), or the stately rotunda, and of course the projection room itself -where flight seemed so possible. Oh-And that great and unforgettable sundial. #OTD (May 10) in 1949 The Morehead Planetarium opened at UNC Chapel Hill. It was the 1st in The South, the first on a University campus, & overall the sixth in the USA. During the 1950s-70s NASA Astronauts trained there and 1000s of Tar Heel schoolchildren have visited. The First Planetarium in the South
 
"Hoedown" by ELO in Laser on the Planetarium ceiling -- Great way to start a Friday night out on Franklin Street.
 
db,

Did Chatham County schools come to Memorial Hall once a year (likely Grades 3/4 through 8/9) to hear the NC Symphony perform?

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools did; but, that’s a really short bus ride from each school.
 
Alas, no symphony for us Chathamites. We did go yearly to the Future Farmers of America Feed and Fescue Festival in Raleighwood though.
 
Zoo_View said:
db,

Did Chatham County schools come to Memorial Hall once a year (likely Grades 3/4 through 8/9) to hear the NC Symphony perform?

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools did; but, that’s a really short bus ride from each school.
Click to expand...
With Tonnettes
 
Zoo_View said:
db,

Did Chatham County schools come to Memorial Hall once a year (likely Grades 3/4 through 8/9) to hear the NC Symphony perform?

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools did; but, that’s a really short bus ride from each school.
Click to expand...
BTW - while we didn’t have any, it would have made a lot of sense if we’d’ve had a few short buses for some of the folks that I came up with.
 
IMG_8837.jpeg

Died on May 11, 1981.

He figured prominently in the late 1970s matriculation of many.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top