Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State
On this day in 1928: At the request of American Legion officials, Durham police remove a Ku Klux Klan float from line in the annual Armistice Day parade. The float bears the letters “KKK” and two white-draped figures representing “Purity” and “Honesty.”
“Since our post is composed of men of all classes and all religious faiths ” a Legion official tells the Durham Morning Herald, “participation by the Klan in our parade would throw the entire picture out of harmony.”
“Roger’s long torturous season [1961, in which he hit a record 61 homers] was over…He had committed to a traveling, postseason home-run-derby exhibition that also featured Harmon Killebrew and Jim Gentile…. He had a miserable experience. Again, the press was at the heart of his problems. Gentile recalls:
” ‘We went to Wilson, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro and a couple of other places…. After spending a whole season being given a hard time by hostile reporters in New York, having a bunch of new writers on his back was tough for him. He told them, “If I had known that you were going to ask me the same old questions, I would have brought a tape with me.”
” ‘In Wilson we had a real nice crowd, but then what Roger said wound up in the papers and it cut us down a little. They didn’t write anything nice about us after that ….
” ‘Poor Roger couldn’t go anywhere. He’d step out of the hotel and people were chasing him… I thought of Roger when I saw what happened to the Beatles.’ ”
— From “Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero” by Tom Clavin and Danny Peary (2010)
Maris died in 1985. Killebrew, whose only minor league experience came with the Charlotte Hornets in 1956, died last week. Gentile, 76, lives in Edmond, Okla.
— “Ruth’s hit carried at least 600 feet… certainly a record that will stand for all time in Winston-Salem.”
— Amnesia? A faked death? Or what?
— “A preservationist by nature” from Durham blows his Maine chance.
— Scavenged from Monitor repair job — and turned into a doll cradle!
— So what comes after ZZZ?
Unsettling news indeed: The “well-being” of North Carolinians reportedly ranks 36th in the nation. Gallup’s composite index weighs 20 factors, such as stress, obesity, job satisfaction, nighttime safety, happiness…. Happiness? Tar Heels come up short in happiness?
Why, it hasn’t been that long ago — the ’70s, actually — that John Shelton Reed was explaining why no less than 90 percent of North Carolinians considered their state “the best, all things considered.” In sum: nice neighbors, nice weather. (Among the dozen other states studied, Massachusetts came in last at 40 percent.)
Mt. Airy native Donna Fargo even claimed the title of “Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.”
So what happened? In the intervening four decades, have newcomers from Massachusetts been stealthily U-Hauling their gloom and naysaying past the interstate welcome centers? Or are 21st century North Carolinians simply unhappy, for whatever reason, in a state they may still consider the best?
Gallup asked, “Did you experience feelings of happiness during a lot of the day yesterday?” For reasons I’m sure make sense in the opinion-harvesting community, the results are presented by congressional district. Thus, North Carolina’s happiest districts are Four (Durham, Chapel Hill) and Nine (Charlotte region minus Charlotte), both at 90 percent “yes.” Its unhappiest district: Seven (Wilmington, part of Fayetteville) at 84 percent.
Finally, this caught my eye: In response to “Are you satisfied with the city or area where you live?” the 94 percent yes in North Carolina’s District Four was topped only by the 95 percent yes in California’s District 48.
Curse you, Laguna Beach.
— A visceral provenance indeed: The staircase where Harriet Jacobs was beaten.
— The hoopla for “The King’s Speech” gives cause (were any needed) to look back at the insightful and unblinking work of Durham’s Barry Yeoman, e.g., “They Called him B-Biden” and “Why My Stutter Makes me a Better Reporter” and “Wrestling with Words.”
— From the farthest front, 77 accounts by North Carolinians at Gettysburg.
— Jock Lauterer’s latest A Thousand Words selection, from Dorothea Lange, depicts 74-year-old Caroline Atwater in the doorway of her Orange County log home on July 1, 1939.
Just wondering: Might she be kin to Anthony “Shine” Atwater of “Reet and Shine,” the inexplicably uncelebrated dual biography by Michael Schwalbe? (Ranking one-two worldwide in frequency of the Atwater surname: Chapel Hill and Durham.)
— ” ‘Hush puppies don’t have sugar in them,’ she stated categorically.”
“In a kind of parting shot… as whites fled, those highways [to suburbia] were often routed specifically through African American neighborhoods….
“In Durham, for example, [N.C.] Route 147 was built to help connect the downtown manufacturing and business center with land being developed and sold almost exclusively to whites in suburbs north of the city. That highway… displaced Durham’s main African American business district, so well known for its cultural vitality and economic success that it was called the Harlem of the South in the years when Harlem was its most vibrant.”
— From “Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect on Our Lives” by Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez (2010)
— If Western North Carolina was so big on Unionism, why weren’t its legislators?
— 18th century “stone” dollhouse from defunct Old Salem Toy Museum blows away auction estimate.
— I hadn’t realized that Pearl Fryar, the topiary wizard (and movie star) of Bishopville, S.C., had such extensive roots in Clinton and Durham. And he’s appearing Jan. 29 in Greenville.
— “Site of the nation’s first student lunch counter sit-ins”: Baltimore?
— Making the case for “a Rutherford Platt Hayes Day in Asheville.”
— J.B. Rhine, father of the “decline effect”?
More phrase-frequency charts from Google Books Ngram Reader:
— Chapel Hill vs. Raleigh and Durham
— Variety Vacationland. Tourism promotion not a priority during World War II?
— Billy Graham vs. Jim Bakker. No contest, even during the glory run of PTL.
— North Carolina vs. South Carolina. South Carolina’s spike in the early 1700s roughly coincides with its becoming a royal colony.
— muscadine wine. After 150 years out of favor — longer even than big band music! — still waiting for a comeback.
— Death noted: actress Patricia Neal, who played opposite Andy Griffith in the prescient and underrated “A Face in the Crowd” and opposite Gary Cooper in “Bright Leaf,” which inspired “Bright Leaves,” Ross McElwee’s bittersweet documentary on tobacco.
— A big day for challenging long-accepted Civil War numbers: the death toll for North Carolina troops and the percentage of Confederates who owned slaves.
— Baseball Hall of Fame acknowledges error in plaque discovered by Durham blogger.
— “Junebug” screenwriter relishes the serendipity of Winston-Salem’s annual Bulky Item Collection day.
— Just when you thought Walter Dellinger couldn’t be any more ubiquitous….
“One hundred and eight convicts escaped from North Carolina prisons and prison camps last month. Each day into the office of the Durham Herald-Sun ticked A. P. dispatches from Raleigh naming the runaways….
“Telegraph Editor John R. Barry bit his pencil for a new headline to put over such repetitious news…. ‘TODAY’S ESCAPES’ [soon became] one of the most familiar standing heads in the Herald-Sun. Under it last week was chronicled the break of 13 prisoners in three consecutive days.”
— From Time magazine, Aug. 20, 1934