TCB Nov. 7, 2019 — Painting through pain by Triad City Beat

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point November 7-13, 2019 triad-city-beat.com

GREENSBORO EDITION

FREE

Painting with pain The Greensboro Massacre immortalized on canvas

PAGE 12

Chicken stew PAGE 11

GSO Massacre on stage PAGE 9, 12 & 13

#OKBoomers PAGE 6

November 7-13, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Charlie Hunter and the fine kettle On a recent ning at the exact center of the universe. Friday night in the Hunter is one of the most important Crown, Bobby guitarists working today, a guy who Previte helmed invented his own 10-finger technique the iteration of his while busking in Paris and backing up Voodoo OrchesMichael Franti, displayed amply in a dense tra astride a small catalog that dates back to the early ’90s. drum kit, where This makes him one of Greensboro’s most by Brian Clarey he could keep noteworthy citizens, though he’s only lived time, direct flow and provide inspiration in town for a year or so. for the band as they tackled “Bitches He came for a lot of the same reasons Brew” and other highly technical pieces of the rest of us did: It’s an easy place to live, music from the master Miles Davis. affordable, manageable and, for a guy Previte’s Voodoo Orchestra experiment who spends half the year on the road, might best be described as a pop-up, a convenient to leave via the highways or one off, a temporary jazz orthe finest airport in the country. chestra formed largely from loHe had been living with his Charlie Hunter wife cal musicians itching to get their and kids in Montclair, NJ, has come to hands on this kind of material. and while the proximity to Previte parachutes in from New town. New York City was useful for York to weave it all together. a modern guitarist, it had its Among the local luminardrawbacks. ies on the stage that night were UNCG “We never could make any money,” student Chloe White on the baritone he says. “All the important things about sax, UNC School of the Arts profesNew York — the culture, the nightlife and sor Reagan Mitchell on the alto and the everything — we had aged out of. All that troubadour Ben Singer having so much was left was the bills, and all the probfun on his organ that one could have been lems.” tempted to sully the moment with a dirty From Greensboro, he’s got the wherejoke. They found sound architect Dante withal to maintain his road-heavy schedule Whitmore at the Apple Store. and then book the kinds of gigs he wants And then, in the back row pulling to play in his adopted hometown, like the double duty on guitar and bass, there was Voodoo Orchestra. There’s more like it in Charlie Hunter. the pipeline, he says. It was Previte’s show, but Hunter’s “Whatever I have to offer,” he says, moment — it was he who assembled the “I need to put it out there, here. Even talent for the show, set the rehearsals at in these small places, like the Crown or OnTheOne studio in downtown GreensOnTheOne, I’ve seen the effect this has boro, gave a stamp of gravitas to the on local musicians, the young people. It proceedings that left audience members overtakes them and they just respond.” feeling like they had just spent the eve-

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka

KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES

sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

gayla@triad-city-beat.com

SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR Nikki Miller-Ka niksnacksblog@gmail.com

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 GREENSBORO: Nelson Johnson stands in front of a painting STAFF WRITER Savi Ettinger savi@triad-city-beat.com depicting him being carried off by Greensboro policemen in 1979. ART [Photo by Sayaka Matsuoka]

CONTRIBUTORS

Carolyn de Berry, Matt Jones

WINSTON-SALEM: NC Rep. Evelyn Terry holds a brick made by her grandfather, George Black, in front of a wall made from them. [Photo by Jerry Cooper]

November 7-13, 2019

CITY LIFE Nov. 7-10, 2019 by Savi Ettinger

THURSDAY Nov. 7

Alison Saar @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 6:30 p.m.

FRIDAY Nov. 8

Outside In @ Milton Rhodes Art Center (W-S), 5:30 p.m.

Up Front News Opinion

This exhibit brings public art from parks and walls into the Arboreal Gallery. Seven artists contribute pieces from graffiti to mural work, in hopes to educate viewers about how the public art world works. Find the event on Facebook. Observatory open house @ Guilford College (GSO), 7 p.m.

NCDF Performance @ Greenhill (GSO), 8 p.m. The North Carolina Dance Festival shows off a trio of choreographers. Studio C, Vania Claiborne and Janice Lancaster offer up their own creations to be performed in the gallery space. Find the event on Facebook. Case Sensitive @ Monstercade (W-S), 9 p.m. Case Sensitive fills Monstercade with a spooky brand of pop in their Farewell for Now tour, before going on hiatus. Waking April and Foxture open, adding some indie and synth pop. Find the event on Facebook.

Puzzles

Totally Rad Trivia @ Gibb’s Hundred Brewing Company (GSO), 7:30 p.m. Gibb’s former tradition of Thursday trivia returns for a night of pop-culture questions and rapid-fire answers. Come by yourself, or bring five of your friends to form a team. Find the event on Facebook.

The Guilford College observatory opens to the public for a multimedia show and a chance to look through telescopes. Watch a show in the planetarium and then head up to the roof for a chance to see the planets yourself. Find the event on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad

Emily Stewart and Kasey Horton @ Joymongers Barrell Hall (W-S), 7:30 p.m. Emily Stewart fills Joymongers with songs that flow from country to traditional folk to the blues. Kasey Horton jumps in on the viola to give Stewart’s music another dimension. Find the event on Facebook.

Culture

The Weatherspoon Art Museum houses an exhibit from Alison Saar, an artist who uses printmaking and sculpture to express her experiences as an African-American person. Learn more at weatherspoonart.org.

November 7-13, 2019

SATURDAY Nov. 9

Up Front

Clash of the Comedians @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO), 4 p.m.

SUNDAY Nov. 10

Hand 2 Hand Holiday Market @ Revolution Mill (GSO), 11 a.m. Get a head start on holiday shopping with an indie market featuring dozens of local artists and vendors. Visit panels on female entrepreneurs, or pop by a self-care corner. Find the event on Facebook.

Opinion

News

Angelo’s Holiday Artisan Market @ Wise Man Brewing Company (W-S), 12 p.m.

This evening of humor combines improv with competition. A duo of comedians performs while pulling up audience members to compete in an improv show. Find the event on Facebook.

Culture

Reynolda House Party @ Reynolda House Museum of Modern Art (W-S), 7 p.m.

Brewery Chili Cook-Off @ The Porch Kitchen (W-S), 3 p.m. This cook-off sees Winston-Salem based breweries create a chili recipe using one of their beers as a key ingredient. Sample what each brewery concocts, and vote on a favorite while also taking part in a beer pong tournament, corn hole, or other games. Find the event on Facebook. Friendsgiving Feast @ LeBauer Park (GSO), 5 p.m.

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Wise Man hosts a crafts bazaar made up of more than 40 local creators. Shop for handmade art, antiques, and vintage goods. Food and beer options also are available. Find the event on Facebook.

This house party brings the 1920s to the Reynolda House. Dance the night away with live jazz performances and cocktails after dinner, or attend one of the museum’s other fundraisers for the weekend. Find the event on Facebook.

Celebrate Thanksgiving early with a dinner to support Greensboro’s parks. The dinner funds free events in downtown parks. Save your seat and learn more on Facebook.

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

“We’re calling upon people to do Wade Supreme Court decision. more than they may have ever done “We have a very emboldened antibefore.” abortion movement at the moment,” That was the message Terry Salas she said. “Since 1973, there have been Merritt, strategic communications manover 1,000 abortion restrictions introager for A Woman’s Choice, had for the duced.” audience on Tuesday evening. Citing the appointment of two conA crowd of more than 60 aborservative justices to the Supreme Court tion rights supporters gathered at the — Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — Parkway United Church of Christ in Susanna Birdsong, senior policy counsel Winston-Salem to hear from a panel of for the ACLU of North Carolina, noted experts, including Merritt, who works for that the court has a conservative majoran organization that operates abortion ity, which anti-abortion lawmakers hope clinics in North Carolina and Florida. will be able to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Volunteer at our clinics… what we Constituents have a duty to make mean by volunteer we mean more their voices heard in the 2020 election about talk, connect, being able to to keep abortion access legal in the attend events like this and get more country, she said. people out to events “We killed an anti-aborlike this,” Merritt said. tion bill in the legislature this ‘We have a very “Being able to show year… that was because of up at city council emboldened anti- you,” Birdsong said to the meetings and speak audience. “That was because abortion moveup… being able to of constituents who spoke send postcards with out early and often and let ment at the monotes of encouragetheir legislators know that ment.’ ment to clinics to this was important to them, -NARAL Pro-Choice your legislators… and let Governor Cooper know NC Executive Director that this was important to let people know you are watching and them and that they would Tara Romano you’re noticing everybe thinking about this when thing they do.” they went to the polls.” During the Reproductive Rights Panelists and audience members also Forum — which was hosted by Triad spoke about the importance of conNOW, a local chapter of the National necting with those with who, they may Organization for Women — four paneldisagree in ways that build understandists talked about the history of abortion ing. access in the state as well as strategies One woman recalled the days before and ways to continue to fight for aborRoe v. Wade in which abortion was still tion access in the future. illegal in most parts of the country and “There’s an awful lot of work that what narratives helped to pass the case continues to need to be done,” said NC for abortion access. Rep. Evelyn Terry (D-Forsyth). “We’re “It was this idea of shared values bumping against a very difficult wall. of fairness and compassion,” she It isn’t impenetrable… but the reality said. “Compassion was the big thing. is that it takes this advocacy and this I remember the stories were about work and of course, ultimately to get the women who had gone to illegal [these lawmakers] out of there, because abortionists and died trying to get we know that it’s wrongheaded and it’s abortions…so there were all these stories barbaric….” about trying to build understanding for NARAL Pro-Choice NC Executive the women in these situations…we need Director Tara Romano talked about the to go back to pushing those stories number of abortion restrictions that forward more.” have been passed since the 1973 Roe v.

November 7-13, 2019

The fight for reproductive rights going into 2020 by Sayaka Matsuoka

November 7-13, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

#OKBoomer by Brian Clarey Things happen fast on the internet, and so it was that “Ok Boomer” almost went unnoticed. Between wrapping my head around the concept of VSCO girls and contemplating the screaming lady/cat meme, I’ve sort of had a full plate these last few weeks. But the “Ok Boomer” meme dropped hard last week and is still making the rounds of mainstream media. Maureen Dowd hit it in the New York Times this weekend, but the phrase has not yet made it to the “Today” show, so the bit is still live. “Ok Boomer” is the newest technique deployed by Millennials and Gen Zers when confronted by antiquated notions from the self-absorbed Baby Boomer generation — now solidly entrenched in old age and more convinced than ever of their own superiority. So now, at Thanksgiving, when a Boomer uncle says, “Why don’t you just go out there, pound the pavement and get yourself a good job?” or “What do you mean you don’t have health insurance?” or

“By the time I was your age I had already bought my first house,” instead of explaining it all to him, the quick-witted millennial can roll her eyes and say, “Ok Boomer.” It’s sort of like saying, “Whatever,” except targeted specifically to people who remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. Not all of them were at Woodstock, you know. Some of them were dumping sodas on the heads of the Greensboro Four, protesting the integration of their schools and burning Beatles albums. But I will remind you that these Boomers, the children of the Greatest Generation, were handed the greatest run of prosperity in modern history. And yes, huge advances have been made in the arts, technology and other fields during their reign. But it’s also true that everything shitty right now started on their watch. Me, I’m Gen X, so I think the whole thing is hilarious. Go ahead and disagree with me, but I’m pretty sure you know how I’ll reply.

‘People came because there was work’: George Black’s legacy by Jordan Green

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

provided to his family and the wider community. “Papa’s place was the neighborhood social services and employment agency,” Terry said. When Terry was a child, she was the third generation in the house. “People came because there was work,” she said. “It was fun because my mama was a nutcase. She had good business sense. There were eight children. They were a musical family. My mama played banjo, and two of her brothers played piano. They played house rent parties. It was fun. But you didn’t linger. You had to work. It was a neighborhood gathering place. It was sort of laced and tied up with his entrepreneurial spirit.” JERRY COOPER The family entertained on Sundays. George Black’s home and brickyard in Winston-Salem is on the National Register of Historic Places. Terry recalled family members reciting poetry and reading from the Bible. Her House, home of the tobacco baron shape required bricklayers to take a mother’s comedic streak elicited comReynolds family, said Martha Canipe, a more artistic approach and be more conparisons to Moms Mabley. member of Preservation Forsyth’s board scientious with their application of morThe son of a former slave, Black of directors. It should be recognized as a tar. Many bricklayers preferred working walked from his native Randolph national landmark. with factory-made bricks because they County to Winston-Salem as a child. He “Winston-Salem can be so proud of could go faster, she said. found work for the Hedgecock family, this family,” she said. “This man’s father Terry excavated her grandfather’s kiln and met his future wife, who worked was a slave. He walked here, and became and brickyard with the help of Thomas for another family in what is now Old a brickmaker, and his granddaughter is a Brabham from 2009 to 2011. Salem. state representative.” Brabham was one of George Black’s “She taught him to read because she Terry recalled that her grandfather proteges. recognized what a mathematician he was a fair man who didn’t consider him“He was a little boy who lived across was,” Terry said. “That’s why they made self subordinate to anyone, regardless the street,” Terry recalled. “His grandfait so well before the Depression.” of race or wealth. In one incident in the ther said, ‘The rest of the boys are going Black started out working for a 1950s, Terry recalled either a president astray. Can you take him under your white-owned brickmaker, but eventually of chairman of the board from Wachowing and put him to work?’ Papa did.” acquired his own equipment and went via Bank visiting the brickyard to check Later, Terry took care of Brabham into business for himself. He produced on an order. when his health declined. He died in bricks that George Black 2013. were used to ran the man off. Terry said she thinks her grandfather’s A discussion about 1900s build the 1923 “I gave you example of self-respect and fair dealing North Carolina African-American innovators of my word,” with others should be applied more in Baptist HospiTerry recalled today’s social climate. Winston-Salem will take place tal, Wachovia her grandfather “He was a model of the possibility of bank branches during Preservation Forsyth’s saying. “They’re living in peace and harmony as long as and fine homes gonna be ready. you’re willing to give and take and learn annual meeting at the George in WinstonGo away and from each other,” she said. “He was a Salem’s elite Black House, located at 111 Deldo your bankmodel for living harmoniously without Buena Vista ing.” compromising your values.” labrook Road in Winston-Salem, neighborhood. George And she wants future generations to Later, George on Nov. 17 from 2 to 4 p.m. Black’s distinctake pride in black heritage. Black’s bricks tive, handmade “It’s got the potential for being recrewould be used bricks were in ated,” Terry said. “I thought about a in restorations high demand, and they required a highrenaissance of sorts for East Winston of Old Salem and Colonial Williamser level of craftsmanship to lay. Holding because of our footprint. I get very emoburg, and President Nixon sent him one of the bricks, Terry noted that the tional about this. We have a lot of young to Guyana to teach his brickmaking rough surface appealed to homeowners people who have given up on legacy and technique. in Buena Vista who were looking for a inheritance. This is your dirt. God’s not In its own way, the George Black rustic look. Their somewhat irregular making it anymore.” House is as important as Reynolda

Up Front

The George Black House still cuts a handsome figure at the top of the hill on Dellabrook Road in Winston-Salem’s Dreamland Park neighborhood. The symmetrical clapboard house boasts two chimneys, a generous front porch and distinctive front gable. Ringed with kudzu, the spread surrounding the house is similarly ample, and it’s easy to imagine the brickyard, gardens and smokehouses that once made it a hub of industry and plentitude. The legacy of George Black, the internationally renowned brickmaker who lived here up to his death in 1980 at the age of 101, is secure. A National Register of Historic Places marker at the roadside ensures that. But the house is in sore need of repair: The floorboards on the porch have buckled and rotted. Glass is busted out of one of the front windows. What’s left of the front steps is a pile of rubble, and a new set fashioned out of George Black bricks is under construction. Evelyn Terry, a state lawmaker and granddaughter of George Black, pulled into the gravel driveway on Tuesday afternoon, and members of Preservation Forsyth’s board of directors ambled up and greeted her. By her own estimation, Terry has spent at least 20 years working to preserve her grandfather’s homeplace. She updated board members about a recent visit from a developer, adding that she’s requested a proposal. And she pulled out a large book entitled How to Build a House Museum by University of Chicago professor Theaster Gates, opening to a page with a black-and-white photo of her grandfather’s house. It’s unclear how much money it would take to stabilize and restore the house so that it can be opened to the public, but the local preservation group is at least entertaining the question, and its annual meeting on Nov. 17 will put the house in the spotlight. “We haven’t discovered all the steps to [needed to renovate the house],” Preservation Forsyth President Joyce Pope said. “We’re developing that. We’re trying to figure out how to do that in a measured way, so it helps the owner. It’s a project in process.” Whatever ultimately comes of the preservation project, Terry is determined that the site will convey the sense of innovation, industriousness, mutual support and fun that her grandfather

November 7-13, 2019

NEWS

November 7-13, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad

NOVEMBER

The Idiot Box Presents: Judah Friedlander 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23 OTHER EVENTS:

The Ultimate Comic Challenge

Puzzles

stand up comedy competition 8:30 p.m. Friday, November 1st

Family Friendly Improv Comedy

7:30 p.m. Saturday, November 2nd. $5 tickets online

Improv Comedy 18 and Older 9:30 p.m. Saturday, November 2nd.

503 N Greene St, Greensboro

ibxcomedy.com

Up Front News

From left to right: Joyce Hobson Johnson, Signe Waller, Marty Nathan, Nelson Johnson, Floris Cauce and Willena Cannon at one of the commemoration events on Nov. 2.

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

movements, the Rev. Nelson Johnson talked about the importance of starting small. He pointed to the Beloved Community Center’s weekly campaigns in which members go door-to-door to talk to individuals about the center and its mission. “I asked, ‘Do you know your neighbors?’” said Johnson about a recent canvassing experience. “They say, ‘I’ve seen ’em but I don’t have much to do with them.’ And then I ask them, ‘Well do you want to know them a little better?’ They say ‘No, I don’t care to.’ Well, you’ve already run into something cultural… if you get 20 people and 15 of them say that, then you have a cultural problem. “Seventy-nine was about expanding beyond the black community to the labor community, the biracial labor community… Relationships are fundamental to building community power,” Johnson continued. “You cannot do it without relationships. And that means that you have to actually work with people who don’t necessarily think like you but who have enough shared interests that you can walk towards each other. And actually that is a form of power, it’s in that connectedness around some common interest that you have a bit of power.”

Culture

giving background and context for the for examples or for lessons that we might massacre. Presenters and panelists spoke learn,” Tutu said. “I think that the huge about the history of the Communist thing in the US is that even those who Workers Party, including the life and are in the struggle have bought into US legacy of the massacre’s victims, as well exceptionalism. And because that is the as the aftermath and ongoing relevance case, what has happened in the rest of of the event. the world, does not resonate… “For me, Greensboro is part of a “’Seventy-nine Greensboro, the murlarger international connection, so we der of the five, the terrorizing of a whole have Greensboro in ’79; in ’76 in South community was not something that Africa, we have Soweto where school happened in isolation in this country,” children were she continued. massacred by the “Murders conpolice,” said the tinue, the terrorLearn more about the Greens- izing of commuRev. Naomi Tutu, a South Afrinities continues boro Massacre and the 40th can activist and in this country. anniversary commemoration And as long as we daughter of former Archbishop at things like events at greensboromassa- look Desmond Tutu. what happened crelessonstoday.org. “And for me, what in Greensboro as the importance individual events, is how easy it is we are not going for the powerful to make us forget our to build the movement that we need for stories.” our children.” Tutu spoke about the necessity to not Connectedness only across not only only remember the past, but to connect countries and continents but across events across the world to each other to smaller scales like local and national strengthen the broader goal of social movements as well as between older and justice. current generations became a thread “When we talk about what is happenthroughout the day’s events. ing in this country right now, I am struck During the afternoon workshop on that people do not look outside the US building local power as part of national

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

Opinion

Stifled sobs escaped from audience members while others silently wiped tears from their cheeks as the sharp cracks of gunfire rang through the chapel. On a screen near the altar, video footage of young men and women being shot in the streets, blood flowing onto the pavement from their lifeless bodies, played from a projector. Many in the audience at Bennett College’s Pfeiffer Chapel had never seen the footage from four decades ago, when the KKK and American Nazi Party murdered five members of the Communist Workers’ Party in Greensboro, an event which would become known as the Greensboro Massacre. The killings took place just a mile east from where community members — including several of those who lived through the event — gathered on Nov. 2 as part of a series of events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the massacre. “This is where you are today,” said Joyce Hobson Johnson, a civil rights activist and wife to the Rev. Nelson Johnson. Both experienced and lived through the event and eventually worked to start the Beloved Community Center for which they now serve as co-directors. “Where Sandi Smith once gathered here for chapel and walked these grounds and helped organize her fellow students… so we’re here today to continue with this commemoration, remembering, maybe shedding a tear or two but mainly rededicating our hearts and our minds to continue this pursuit of the beloved community.” Smith was one of the five people killed on Nov. 3, 1979, during a “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro. She was a civil rights activist and president of the student body at Bennett. After graduating, she became a nurse and continued to organize for workers rights. Cesar Cauce, James Waller, William Evan Sampson and Michael Nathan were the four other victims of the shooting. “I feel like going on,” Joyce sang after the video came to an end. “I feel like pressing my way, though trials come on every hand, I feel like pressing my way.” The crowd of more than 100 stood and sang along as Floris Cauce, Marty Nathan and Signe Waller, the widows of those killed, gathered at the front of the room and embraced. The second day of a weekend of commemorative events, the morning presentation at Pfeiffer Chapel set the stage for the rest of the afternoon by

November 7-13, 2019

The story and the legacy of the Greensboro Massacre, 40 years later by Sayaka Matsuoka

November 7-13, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

OPINION

EDITORIAL

Big companies stick together Last week, a longtime reader called our offices to

regretfully report that his place of employment would no longer be carrying our free newspaper. It’s noteworthy that he works at Starbucks, and that the reason for our ejection has nothing to do with our paper itself. Starbucks had made a company-wide decision, he said, to remove all newspapers. His story checks out. Back in July Starbucks declared that its retail stores would no longer sell newspapers. The reason: People kept stealing them. That’s no small thing: a single weekday issue of the New York Times cost $2.50, and Sunday edition goes for $6 outside New York City. Then, in October, the Starbucks corporation announced, perhaps as an olive branch to its fellow mega conglomerate, that guests using the wifi in their coffeeshops would enjoy complimentary access to the New York Times website. So the Times manages to retain its readers while they’re in Starbucks, possibly collecting a fee in the process but in either case reaping the Readers who pick eyeballs that set the price for their own up their TCB at in-house ads. And Starbucks will Starbucks gets to assure its Times-reading have to find ancustomers that their other place to get access to the Gray Lady will continue their papers. unfettered, albeit in digital form, while they enjoy their peppermint lattes and Starbucks’ brand of hospitality (good luck with the crossword-puzzle people). It’s what the neckties call a “win-win.” Except, of course, for us, and every other free paper that distributes at Starbucks’ more than 14,000 US locations. This is not going to make or break our newspaper. Each Starbucks was good for about 15-25 papers, and our distribution team didn’t hit every single one in the Triad — there are almost 50 of them. We go through more papers at Deep Roots Market in a week than every Starbucks on the route combined. But this means that approximately 250 readers who pick up their Triad City Beat at Starbucks every week will have to find another place to get their papers (Psst: We’ve got a map on the website!) It’s important to remember, too, that free newspapers like ours were not part of the problem that Starbucks was attempting to address. You can’t steal something that’s freely given.

CITIZEN GREEN

Walker and Budd, untethered from reality

Republican lawmakers have no Walker, who was one of 25 House Republicans who problem with an American presistormed the House Sensitive Compartmented Information dent subverting foreign policy for Facility on Oct. 23, focused on the process in his statement personal and partisan gain under on Oct. 31, bizarrely accusing his Democratic colleagues of two conditions — that president is conducting a “tainted and secretive impeachment process” named Donald Trump and he has and “trying to retroactively legalize their injustices and an R after his name. hysterics” while calling Rep. Adam Schiff, who is leading the The facts are as plain as day: impeachment investigation, a “basement-dwelling judge, by Jordan Green President Trump held up military jury and executioner.” aid to Ukraine while asking President Volodymyr Zelensky Yes, the SCIF is in a basement; by design, it needs to to launch an investigation calculated to discredit his politihave sound-proof walls. Schiff is not the judge, jury or excal opposition. After Zelensky thanked Trump during the ecutioner; that responsibility will fall to the Senate. Yes, the July 25 conversation “for your great support in the area of hearings, with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers defense” and expressed readiin attendance, have been closed. ness “to buy more Javelins from It’s akin to taking depositions, the United States for defense and the purpose is to prevent It’s no surprise that Reps. Tedd purposes,” Trump responded, witnesses from coordinating “I would like you do us a favor their testimony. All the evidence Budd and Mark Walker voted in though because our country has will come out, just like any trial. lockstep with their Republican been through a lot and Ukraine There’s no need “legalize” the knows a lot about it,” before colleagues to oppose the Oct. 31 process; it wasn’t ever illegal. launching into a bit of fabululism Echoing a tweet after his Oct. impeachment resolution. about a server that was suppos23 stunt, Walker said in his Oct. edly in Ukraine and supposedly 31 press release: “We will not had something to do with special allow the people of our nation to counsel Robert Mueller’s investibe shut out and shielded from gation of the last election. the facts while their president is undermined by an irrational Trump also prodded Zelensky to investigate the son of mob.” his presumed Democratic opponent in the 2020 election. Puh-lease. “There’s a lot of talk about [Joe] Biden’s son, that Biden Walker and Budd don’t speak for Guilford County, and stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find their claim to speak on behalf of “the people” is tenuous out about that,” Trump said, “so whatever you can with the at best. They represent a carefully curated segment of the attorney general would be great.” electorate designed to ensure that they don’t face political In a supplemental declaration provided to House competition in the general election. investigators by Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the In the last election, Walker received 45.4 percent of the European Union, said that “in the absence of any credible vote in Guilford County; Budd, only pitiful 35.5 percent. explanation of the suspension of aid, I presumed that the The gerrymandered districts, which were declared invalid aid suspension had become linked” to whether Ukraine by the state courts last week, split Democratic-leaning pursued an investigation into the Guilford down the middle. If the gas company on whose board districts were drawn fairly, at least Hunter Biden served and a theory one of the two lawmakers would be about Ukrainian involvement in the out of a job. 2016 US election, according to the Likewise, only 43.9 percent of Reps. Mark Walker and Ted Washington Post. Forsyth County voters favored Budd don’t speak for Guilford Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx in the It’s no surprise that Reps. Ted Budd and Mark Walker, whose last election. County, and their claim to congressional districts carve up We didn’t elect them, and they speak on behalf of “the peoGreensboro and Guilford County, don’t speak for us. voted in lockstep with their RepubThe idea that lawmakers should ple” is tenuous at best. lican colleagues to oppose the Oct. demonstrate independent judgment 31 impeachment resolution. But might seem quaint and outdated. their stated rationales for opposing We’re not naïve — we know that the impeachment proceeding are GOP lawmakers are going to speak risible. from partisan scripts rather than treat the impeachment “During the call, there was no pressure or conditionality process as a solemn duty and to fulfill their obligation to placed US aid, and both President Trump and President check abuses of executive power. Zelensky have said there was no quid pro quo,” Budd said Their abandonment of fact-based deliberation is likely to in a prepared statement that stands in stark contradiction to play well in the 2020 Republican primary. the available evidence. History may not be so kind.

November 7-13, 2019

Nik Snacks Chicken stew fires seasonal traditions

Up Front

here’ll be a couple dozen people, plenty of food, haybale wagon rides for the kids, s’mores and games,” the man said. “BYOB, yourself, a camp chair, your kids and your boyfriend or your husband but don’t by Nikki Miller-Ka bring both.” “What’s a chicken stew?” I asked. Initially I was told it was chicken breasts boiled in milk with butter, salt and pepper. It sounds disgusting, I scoffed. Against my better judgment, I was intensely curious as to why anyone would enjoy sitting outside in the cold eating milky chicken with strangers. I accepted the invitation, not knowing what was in store for the evening. But I had just scored my first formal invite to a chicken stew.

News Opinion

The annual chicken stew at Advance Methodist Church adheres to North Carolina tradition. FORSYTH COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION

Puzzles

of seasonal chicken stews. She and her husband Bryan attend multiple chicken stews each year. They have made the practice a part of their lives. “My grandmother used to make a huge pot of chicken stew when I was growing up, but it wasn’t a like a party, it was just dinner feeding a lot of family member,” says Anna. The first chicken stew she attended as an adult was at her church, Advance United Methodist. Just like the traditions of Moravian chicken pie, Brunswick stew or even a chicken bog (similar to chicken stew but with white rice added), simple ingredients make for good eats to feed a mass of people. Crackling for a few hours now, the wood is black and mottled with gray. The kettle is boiling, roiling, rolling with chicken stew while the crowd gathers around. A small group share a few bottles of beer, brewed at home by one of the attendees. The stew is ready. A man using a boat oar as a stirring spoon with one hand ladles the milky, buttery broth into bowls with the other. Guests doctor up their bowls with crunched up sleeves of saltine crackers and open bottles of Texas Pete hot sauce. My soul and my body warm up with the first taste. Blessed are those who are poor with hunger for chicken stew, for they shall be satisfied with heat, food and fellowship.

Shot in the Triad

Tonight, the first chords of an untuned guitar tinkle in the air as cars and trucks pull up in the gravel driveway. Children’s laughter and squeals echo throughout while the adults look on. As the sun sets, those who gathered zip up their jackets, pull their scarves a little tighter. Fresh logs of wood tossed onto the fire in the pit roll into the coal ash bits; blue smoke billows out from under a black kettle hovering above it. The chicken stew was designed to bring people together for fellowship. Most are cooked in a large pot or kettle outside, over an open firepit. Folks sit in the yard to eat it while they enjoy the crisp, cool fall and winter air. The hot stew warms your insides while the open fire warms your extremities as the chill sets in and the temperature drops. Think of a chicken stew like a cookout or a pig-pickin’. It’s a noun. It’s an event. It’s an experience. It’s a culinary delight. It’s a tradition. A chicken stew is the transition from summer cookouts to winter hygge, wassailing and other end-of-year holiday events in western North Carolina and parts of upstate South Carolina and Georgia. “We follow my dad’s recipe,” Denise Hunt says. “It’s

one that he got from a friend many years ago.” That’s how every story of every chicken stew begins. Many years ago, someone decided to invite friends, family and neighbors to their home, church or other community gathering in order to feed people under auspices of a social gathering during fall and winter. Hunt and her husband Marcus have hosted nearly a dozen of these events, sometimes combining it with Halloween festivities and a costume contest at their home in Winston-Salem. Recipes for chicken stew vary, but it traditionally consists of a cream or milk-based broth mixed with the chicken broth from cooking whole chickens plus a few extra breasts, a sprinkle of black pepper and lots of butter (or margarine, for those who don’t believe in the power of animal-based fats). Accompanied by saltine crackers, hot sauce and dessert supplied by attending guests, dinner is served. “I had attended chicken stews growing up and remembered them as being a fun outdoors event,” Hunt explains. “When my husband and I moved into a house that had a big enough yard to host a party, we thought a chicken stew would be a cost-effective way to feed lots of people.” Marcus adds, “It’s sometimes looked at as ‘poor-people food’ that’s turned into a social event.” A personal friend of mine, Anna Howell, is the queen

Culture

Tobacco farmers and families prepare a chicken stew at the tobacco curing barns, 1942

ANNA HOWELL

November 7-13, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

CULTURE The Greensboro Massacre, on canvas and in brushstrokes by Sayaka Matsuoka

im Waller was laying face down, and I went over to him and turned him over and the air came out of him…. It was his last breath. It was an exhale and I knew then that this could not have happened without police complicity.” Rev. Nelson Johnson remembers the moment like it was yesterday. He had just finished fighting off a Nazi who had attacked him with a knife, cutting into his arms, leaving trails of blood. He stumbled across the road where lifeless bodies lay on the pavement until he found Jim Waller, one of the five victims of what would become known as the Greensboro Massacre, and watched as his friend died. The black-and-white image of Johnson kneeling next to Waller, widely circulated, is one of the most well-known images from the event from 40 years ago. But in the front room of the Beloved Community Center, a diptych brings the scene to color. “I was so determined to show their experiences as accurately as possible,” says artist Aliene de Souza Howell. “I wanted to honor them and tell their story.” The 10 pieces in Howell’s Greensboro Massacre series sit propped up on foldout tables at the Beloved Community Center. They portray various scenes from the killings as well as images and portraits of the KKK and Nazi members who murdered the victims four decades ago on Nov. 3, 1979. Howell, who now lives in New York City, was working on her thesis at Guilford College in 2003 when she first learned about the tragic events. “The more I learned, the more shocked I was that it had happened and that I had never heard about it,” she says. At the time, the push to provide more clarity and visibility around the events was stirring. Eventually, a truth and reconciliation commission was established to demand justice for the victims and to bring light and closure to what had happened. It was around the same time that Howell decided to take on the task of documenting the event through art. She tracked down old newspaper articles and read books written by survivors to get firsthand accounts of the killings. She spoke with Johnson, who helped organize and survived the massacre and is depicted in a number of Howell’s paintings. The largest in the series depicts John-

Rev. Nelson Johnson sits in front of some of Aliene de Souza Howell’s Greensboro Massacre paintings at the Beloved Community Center.

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

son as he’s being dragged off by members of the Greensboro like Johnson’s so she could accurately depict the way his body Police Department right after the shootings. was twisting as he was lifted. “Instinctively then, it just flashed in me that these people She says she worked on the pieces for hours every night for had totally set us up,” recalls Johnson about the moment. “I about a year. stood up and said out of all of the energy in my body that the “I saw a lot of sunrises that year,” she says. “When I finished police were part of this… and that they are responsible for them, I didn’t know what to do with them; I was in shock.” these murders.” And while she didn’t live through the events, Howell says Johnson recalls that when he went to get a permit for the that researching the massacre and being embedded in the vicmarch about a week before the event, tims and survivors’ stories took a mental that police Capt. LS Gibson had told toll on her. Find out more about Johnson that he would only be able to get “They are such emotional pieces,” she the permit if he signed and promised that says. “I would stay up at night and then Aliene de Souza Howell at any members associated with the march I would have all these nightmares about alienedesouzahowell.com. would not carry any weapons, concealed the Klan coming after me.” or in plain view. And in the moments afNow, Johnson says that the Beloved ter KKK and Nazi members drove up and Community Center is working with the killed his friends, Johnson said he realized that the police had International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro to known a shootout was going to happen. plan an exhibit to display the works. In the painting, Johnson struggles as three police officers “It’s part of a long process of helping this community and grab his arms and legs, lifting his body off the ground. He any other people who are interested better understand what grabs onto a limp chain rail, the only thing keeping him anhappened,” Johnson says. “I think it’s helpful for people to see chored to the earth. some depiction of what actually happened on that day and Howell says that recreating the image took some creativity the wounds after that.” on her part. Using video footage from news crews and a fulllength mirror, the artist recalls contorting her body to look

by Jordan Green

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Klan violence scarcely sound dated. It’s easy to imagine the antiracists who have been engaged in weekly confrontations with armed neo-Confederates in Pittsboro over the past two months saying, “Do we stay home behind closed doors and tremble?... Do we say ridiculous things like, ‘This is a quarrel between two hate groups?’… Do we make public statements to the press saying we deplore violence/ then do nothing?… THE KLAN MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO GROW!... Armed selfdefense is the only defense.” And as with today, when whitesupremacist activism masquerades as anticommunism, the Klan and Nazi shooters were acquitted in the second trial — a federal criminal proceeding based on alleged civil rights violations — through an argument that their actions were motivated by anticommunism as opposed to racism. “The indictment used a very narrow statute of the civil rights law,” says Lewis Pitts, the lawyer for the survivors. “They made it so you had to prove racial animus — a racial motivation for the murders — so the defense used anticommunism again — ‘outside agitators and communists came JORDAN GREEN Paul and Sally Bermanzohn (back row, right) take part in a reading of down here and caused trouble, your Greensboro: A Requiem. honor….’” The Nov. 1 performance of GreensThe stage directions call for the actor to be “choked up,” but boro: A Requiem at A&T was conceived as a “cold reading,” the convulsion of emotion and tears were real when Bermanmeaning that the volunteer readers, mostly community zohn read, “She said: ‘Son, I’m proud of you.’” members who are not trained actors, read their lines with no But in a later scene, where the couple comes to grip with previous experience with the script. But in a poignant twist, their transition from revolutionary commitment to middle-ofPaul and Sally Bermanzohn, two survivors, read their own the-road respectability, Bermanzohn cracked up, the audilines. Also confounding the format to heightened dramatic ence with him, as he read, “I guess I feel like I’m just a vaguely effect, Bob Foxworth, who is the husband of survivor Signe progressive guy.” Waller and a Mark Twain impersonator, read the lines of Eddie As the fourth and final act neared the conclusion, Lucky Dawson, a Ku Klux Klan member who was an informant for gave a reading of Nelson Johnson that would sound familiar the Greensboro Police Department. And Miller Lucky Jr., an to anyone who has heard the man preach on Sunday mornings associate theater professor at A&T, gave a searing reading of or rally activists in weekday evening community meetings in Nelson Johnson, who led the fateful anti-Klan rally in 1979 and church fellowship halls in Greensboro. who now serves with his wife, Joyce, as co-executive director “What does it mean when folk that you love can’t get a job, of the Beloved Community Center. pushed outside of the workforce?” Lucky read, his voice aching Mann’s documentary-style play, which incorporates the with tribulation. “What does it mean when you find youractual words of real-life people augmented by material from self beaten in the back of a judge’s chamber, with your head her own interviews, comes close to dissolving the distance bleeding, and taken to jail? What does it mean when there’s so between art and life — never more so than when Paul Bermuch suffering and persecution? manzohn read his own lines describing how he came to the “I want to conclude this message by saying that dying is not confrontation with the Klan in 1979 as someone conscientious the worst thing in the world, but perhaps living for nothing, of his parents’ experience surviving the Holocaust. and then dying,” Lucky read, letting his voice drop to the low “I remember I was lying in the hospital — I didn’t know registers before roaring back to a crescendo. whether I would live or die — I’d had six hours of surgery on my “We’re all gonna die,” he said. “Why don’t we stand for brain — and my mother, tiny as she is… well… she could terrify something while we’re living?” me,” he read. “I lay there more frightened of facing her than And a spontaneous wave of applause rippled through the I’d been facing the Klan-Nazi guns and she came into the hosauditorium as a signal of affirmation. pital room, looked at me a long time, then she hugged me.” The church, the activists, the community said, Amen.

Up Front

ésar Alvarez, a playwright and composer and lyricist, addressed an audience gathered in an auditorium on the campus of NC A&T University on Nov. 1 for a reading of the Emily Mann play Greensboro: A Requiem. “The story of the Greensboro Massacre is one of violent white supremacy, so this story contains violent white supremacy and other kinds of supremacy,” said Alvarez, a Greensboro native who is named after César Cauce, one of five antiracist activists slain in 1979. Alvarez identifies as “part of the survivor community” “There are slurs in this play,” Alvarez continued. “There’s the N-word. There’s the K-word. There’s the F-word — not ‘fuck.’ There’s maybe that, too, but we’re gonna say that.” Alvarez asked the readers — dozens of Greensboro residents seated in numbered chairs on stage like an orchestra — to substitute “N-word,” “K-word” and “F-word” for the actual words. Although it might feel awkward, Alvarez suggested looking at the substitution as “device of theatrical distancing” that would not only allow “us to be safe in our community,” but also “to open ourselves more to the story.” In previous experiences, Alvarez said, “it was actually quite intense because it allowed us to engage with this hatefulness differently.” Greensboro: A Requiem debuted in 1996. When the play was first produced, the events that inspired it — concluding with the third trial in 1985 — were scarcely a decade old. Now, the play is more than 20 years old. But it still conveys the immediacy of the violence that ruptured a sunny day in the low-income housing project of Morningside Homes in Greensboro on Nov. 3, 1979. And Mann’s exploration of how the massacre shattered the survivors and how the white power movement has shapeshifted in the years since still feels relevant. “It’s one of the greatest honors of my life to have been entrusted with this story,” Mann said before the reading in Greensboro, “and I want to thank all the survivors and the community for their belief in me over all these years of work. And I hope that giving back to the community in this way will be an act of healing.” The overlapping voices of the Communist Workers Party members from 1979 wrestling with the threat of Ku Klux

November 7-13, 2019

CULTURE Theater as healing, 40 years after the Greensboro Massacre

November 7-13, 2019

Westover Terrace, Greensboro

Shot in the Triad

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SHOT IN THE TRIAD

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Saturday Nov. 30th

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Shot in the Triad Puzzles

28 Author Jonathan Safran ___ 29 ___ gras (food banned by New York City) 30 Actor Ulrich 32 Breakfast drinks 33 Kitteh’s counterpart, in pet slang 34 Nearly 35 Hit the ground hard, in skating 37 Drink for the pinot gallery? 38 Makes a row in a garden, say 40 Time zone abbr. 44 “America’s Got Talent” judge Mandel 45 “That was close” 51 Plus column entry 52 Beach location 54 Doc on a battlefield 55 Related to a hipbone 56 Guanaco’s cousin 57 Short paper 58 Secret signal 59 “Kindergarten Cop” director Reitman 60 Brooding spot 61 Tests for prospective Ph.Ds 62 Fish and chips fish 63 Zoologist’s eggs 64 It may stain when leaking

Culture

Down 1 Split 2 Uninterested 3 “Go, me!” 4 Silvery food fish 5 Loaded (with) 6 “___ have to wait” 7 “The Ballad of Reading ___”: Wilde 8 Is brilliant 9 Existentialist Kierkegaard 10 “Fantastic Mr Fox” author Roald 11 Comedian Philips 12 Covenant 13 Approvals 19 Play-reviewing aid 21 Blanket material 24 Popeye’s rival 25 Lacquer ingredient 26 2019 World Series player

EVENTS

Up Front

1 Wading bird 5 “Lethal Weapon” cop 10 “Whip It” group 14 Standard level 15 “Invisible Cities” author Calvino 16 In a frenzy 17 Provable 18 Some nightclub performances 20 Start of a quip 22 “___ Billie Joe” 23 ___-Cone 24 Support system 27 One-___ (rare events) 31 Digging animals 33 Head-in-elbow motion 36 Part 2 of the quip 39 “The Mikado” accessories 41 Farmyard refrain 42 Mix up 43 Part 3 of the quip 46 Sean Lennon’s mom 47 Father Sarducci of old “SNL” 48 “Entertainment Tonight” alum John 49 Polo Grounds slugger Mel 50 Has been 53 “J’Accuse” author Zola 58 End of the quip 62 Reproduces by hand, maybe 65 “Buenos ___!” 66 Tandoori, e.g. 67 Clear the whiteboard 68 “___ Man of Constant Sorrow” 69 Like some memes 70 Portable dwellings 71 French Open surface

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November 7-13, 2019

CROSSWORD ‘What Good Luck!’—let’s pitch in

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UPCOMING EVENTS Thursday, November 7th Thursday, November 21st We Rise To Fall

Whistler & more tba

Friday, November 8th

Saturday, November 22nd

Viva La Muerte

The Tremors +TBA

Irata w/ Caustic Casanova

sunny ledfurd

Saturday, November 9th Sunday, November 23rd Sunday, November 10th Cimorelli (early show)

Tuesday, November 12th

Wednesday, November 27th Night Sweats, youth league, SleepTorture, Paezor

Brother hawk

Friday, November 29th

Whistler & more tba

crenshaw pentecostal+TBA

Thursday, November 14th old heavy hands, friday, November 15th 2019 GGF Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Party

Saturday, November 16th Angie Aparo

saturday, November 30th Josh King & Julian Sizemore with Abigail Dowd

saturday, December 7th Corporate Fandango w/Janet Flights +TBA

WEEKLY EVENTS Every Wednesday

Open Mic Hosted by DC Carter

221 Summit Ave. Greensboro, NC Across from The Greensboro historical museum