Flags of Their Fathers
How the Greensboro History Museum’s efforts to return WWII artifacts to Japan reflects a broader movement of repatriation by museums across the world.
BY SAYAKA MATSUOKA | PG. 9
CITY LIFE
THURSDAY
Live Painting by Artist in Residence
Sabrina Tillman @ The Art Gallery at Congdon Yards (HP) 10 a.m.
Join TAG for a live painting session as Sabrina Tillman works on “Sunflower and Her Polar Bear.” Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
Thursday Thoughts @ Windsor Rec Center (GSO) 6 p.m.
Forward Justice and the NC Second Chance Alliance is hosting Thursday Thoughts, a session of conversations centering the thoughts and experiences of people with criminal records. Food will be provided.
Scan the QR code to find more events at triad-citybeat.com/local-events JUNE 27 - 29
28
FRIDAY
Watch Party: CCFC vs. Huntsville @ Stock + Grain (HP) 8 p.m.
Head to Stock + Grain to cheer on Carolina Core FC as they take on Huntsville City FC. Be sure to keep and eye out for game food specials from Biscuit, Brisket & Beer, Damn Good Burgers & Dogs and more. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
Bel
Canto Company & Gate City Voices
Auditions St. Andrews Episcopal Church (GSO) 6:30 p.m.
The Choral Arts Collective is looking for singers of all parts to join Bel Canto Company and Gate City Voices. A background in vocal studies is preferred but not required. The Choral Arts Collective says, “Please note that although we often rehearse and perform in church
spaces for their beautiful acoustics, we are in no way affiliated with any denomination or religion.” Register at choralartscollective.org
SATURDAY
Little Innovators: Weird ‘n Wonderful @ Kaleideum (W-S) 11:30 a.m.
Children ages 4 to 6 are invited to experience the “weird ‘n wonderful” through solar prints, sensory play and storytelling, leading young explorers to creativity and imagination. Register at kaleideum.org
Warnersville Celebration @
Warnersville Recreation Center (GSO) 6 p.m.
The Arts Council of Greater Greensboro invites you to this celebration of the cookbook Creative Aging Network
JUNE 30 - JULY 4
and residents of east Greensboro’s Warnersville neighborhood created together. Featuring food trucks and guest speakers.
Musicology Vol. 3 Artist Reception @ The Brewer’s Kettle (HP) 7 p.m.
This month’s gallery celebrates the fusion of music and art through paintings, digital art and installations inspired by legendary tunes and iconic albums. More information on Facebook
30
SUNDAY
Make-A-Wish Night @ Truist Point (HP) 4 p.m.
The High Point Rockers invite you to an evening of baseball and celebrating wishes. A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales purchased through the following link will go to Make-A-Wish Central & Western NC: fevo-enterprise. com/event/Makewish68?r=99. Ticket purchase deadline is two hours before game time.
Piedmont Pops in the Pit:
Patriotic Pops in the Pit! @ Coal pit at Incendiary Brewing (W-S) 7:30 p.m.
The Piedmont Wind Symphony is hosting a patriotic concert playing favorites like “Stars & Stripes Forever.” Find more information at piedmontwindsymphony. com/patrioticpops
3
WEDNESDAY
Bolt, White and Blue Stadium Party @ Truist Stadium (W-S) 6 p.m.
Winston-Salem Dash invites you to its second annual Bolt, White and Blue stadium party. This family-friendly event features live music from Reed Foley, Megan Doss and Jon Montgomery.
There will be face painting, a 360 photo booth and of course, fireworks. Find more information at milb.com/winstonsalem/tickets/2024-theme
4
THURSDAY
Uncle Sam Jam 2024
@ Oak Hollow Festival Park (HP) 4:30 p.m.
High Point Parks & Recreation is hosting a Fourth of July celebration with food trucks, a family fun zone and fireworks. More information on Facebook
Burlesk Con of the Carolinas
@ Single Bros. Bar 6 p.m.
Camel City Burlesk is proud to announce Burlesk Con of the Carolinas, four days of burlesque, drag, sideshow and variety performance arts. The mission of the Con is to “emphasize education, history, honoring contemporaries and legends and preserving the Artform through acknowledgment, affirmation and inclusion. Locations vary each day. Visit triad-city-beat.evvnt.events to purchase tickets.
Stars and Stripes
Spectacular @ First National Bank Field (GSO) 6:30 p.m.
At the Stars and Stripes Spectacular, witness some exciting baseball as the Greensboro Grasshoppers face off against the Aberdeen Ironbirds, followed by “the best fireworks show in the Triad.” Purchase tickets at milb.com/ greensboro/tickets/promotions
Stars & Stripes @ Salem Square (W-S) 7:30 p.m.
Join Salem Band for its annual Stars & Stripes concert honoring veterans in the community with marches, big bands and sing-alongs. All concerts are free and open to the public. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
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This is not just a piece of textile coming home. This is the spirit of that young man coming back as much as if it was any other part of him.
Ziak, pg. 10
Brian Clarey
brian@triad-city-beat.com
PUBLISHER
Allen Broach
allen@triad-city-beat.com
OF COUNSEL
Jonathan Jones
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR
Sayaka Matsuoka
sayaka@triad-city-beat.com
CITYBEAT REPORTER
Gale Melcher
gale@triad-city-beat.com
OPINION
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Two
years post-Roe, abortions are needed more than ever
Iremember the first time I got the implant in my arm. I made an appointment at the Planned Parenthoodin Chapel Hill where I weighed my options. If I got the implant, which is inserted in my upper arm, it would last me about three years. If I got the IUD, which is inserted vaginally, it would last about five. If I stayed on the pill, which I had been taking orally for about seven years at that point, I would need to continue my daily habit. I chose the implant.
This was more than seven years ago, January 2017, right after Trump was about to take office.
Being on birth control was always a given for me. My friends were on it, I was sexually active and I didn’t want to get pregnant. So, like many other women my age, I started on the pill when I got to college. Then, as the years wore on, I started to look for more permanent options. I had friends who had gotten the IUD and had horror stories to tell; I decided to go for what felt like the safer option. To this day, I have one in my arm.
matter how sure I was. I would have to receive mandatory “counseling” about my decision. If I was a minor, I would need parental consent.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned two years ago, the number and rate of abortions have hit their highest points in more than a decade according to the Guttmacher Institute. The organization estimates that there were more than 1 million abortions last year, an increase of 11 percent since 2020.
That fact should be alarming.
It means that despite the Supreme Court’s ruling and state governments’ rollback of reproductive rights, people still need access to safe abortion care.
States bordering places in which it was banned — which is 14 states — abortion increased significantly. That includes NC, where abortions increased 44 percent between 2020 and 2023.
To learn more about accessing abortion, visit planned parenthood.org/ abortion-access
In the first half of 2023, nearly 1 in 5 people who had an abortion traveled across state lines for care. But that’s not always a possibility for those without access to a car, time off of work or access to childcare. Remember, most people who access abortions already have children
Sam LeBlanc
Chris Rudd chris@triad-city-beat.com
AD MANAGER
Heather Schutz
heather@triad-city-beat.com
TCBTIX
Nathaniel Thomas nathaniel@triad-city-beat.com CONTRIBUTORS
Carolyn de Berry, John Cole, Owens Daniels, James Douglas, Michelle Everette, Luis H. Garay, Destiniee Jaram, Kaitlynn Havens, Jordan Howse, Matt Jones, Autumn Karen, Michaela Ratliff, Jen Sorensen, Todd Turner
Aiden Siobhan
aiden@triad-city-beat.com
While the device is meant to last me at least three more years, on the off chance that I somehow got pregnant (knock on wood), I am pretty confident I could access an abortion. I have a car. I have a driver’s license. I have a flexible work schedule. I have health insurance. I could travel out of state if I needed to.
Thankfully, North Carolina is one of the few states where abortion is still legal, albeit with severe restrictions. Greensboro is also home to one of the few abortion clinics in the state.
If I were to get pregnant, I would need to make sure I got an abortion within 12 weeks and six days. Once I got to the clinic, I would need to wait 72 hours after first seeing a doctor for the procedure, no
We know that taking away access to safe abortion is deadly. That’s because staying pregnant can be more dangerous than having an abortion, especially for Black women. It can have negative economic effects, too. Data shows that about half of all people who get an abortion live below the poverty level One study even found that people who were denied an abortion were almost four times more likely to be below the poverty level. Adding a child to that kind of equation can put people into even more dire circumstances.
This is why we need safe, legal access to abortion care.
Like access to clean water, a sound education, comprehensive healthcare, nutritious food, safe shelter, abortion care is a human right. And it’s one that we all should be fighting for.
by Sayaka Matsuoka
Photo by Sayaka Matsuoka Design by Aiden Siobhan
In WinstonSalem, buses play an important role for local and Triad-wide transportation
by Gale Melcher | gale@triad-city-beat.com
Every day, 45 bright-green Winston-Salem Transit Authority buses roll to and fro throughout the city, running along 31 fixed routes making an estimated 1,700 stops.
A 90 degree breeze swam around people waiting for their buses to arrive on a weekday afternoon at Clark Campbell Transportation Center, the city’s downtown bus hub, where dozens of rumbling buses stopped to pick up passengers before lurching on their way.
The transportation center is also a hub for bus lines such as Sunway Charters, Barons Bus and Greyhound, as well as buses with Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation — PART — which connects riders to High Point, Greensboro, Asheboro and Chapel Hill.
One PART rider named Jonathan was hopping on the bus toward Greensboro, where he lives. Jonathan works in research in Winston-Salem, and this bus line helps him make the 30-mile commute to work since he doesn’t have a car.
While another rider named Jamar waited for a lime-green WSTA bus to pull up, he told TCB that if the city didn’t have these buses, he’d have to “walk” or “try to find a ride.”
The city is bumping up how much it spends on transit, per the recently adopted annual budget. Last year’s budget allotted more than $23.5 million to WSTA. This year, that funding has been upped to nearly $30.7 million.
The city received $6.9 million from the Federal Transit Administration this year, and the Winston-Salem Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization is allocating nearly $5.8 million of that to WSTA while PART will receive $723,407.
While WSTA serves as a lifeline to many city residents, it has also had its fair share of issues.
There’s been a shortage of bus drivers in recent years and ridership is half of what it was in 2019. During the 2022-23 fiscal year, more than 1.5 million people rode the bus, and by the end of this fiscal year, ridership is estimated to clock in around 1.6 million. The city also recently updated WSTA’s code of conduct and ban policy while heightening security around Clark Campbell, which is a place of refuge and resources for many homeless residents
Jamar wishes that there was more bus service on the west side of town and further north, and doesn’t love the long wait times — most WSTA daytime routes have 1-hour frequencies whereas neighboring Greensboro’s routes run every 30 minutes. It’s important for transportation to be “available when we need it,” he said.
During May’s budget work sessions, City Councilmember Robert C. Clark complained about the addition of extra bus routes and decrease in ridership.
“Put the buses where the people are that want to ride them,” Clark said.
A massive overhaul of the city’s bus system is on its way — the city recently chose a new bus operator, RATP Dev. That decision could cost them more than $200 million over the course of seven years. With the change in transit operations, City Manager Pat Pate assured Clark that they were going to take a “significant look at our transit routes to make sure that we’re maximizing those as much as we can.”
According to a 2024 report by Forbes, around eight percent of American households do not own a car, and according to the American Public Transportation Association, 45 percent of Americans do not have any access to public transportation. According to the American Automobile Association, it costs more than $1,000 per month to own a car nowadays — not to mention what it costs to initially purchase it.
Percussionist Chi Sharpe is from Winston-Salem, but he’s “taken buses all over the world.”
While waiting for his bus to arrive, Sharpe strummed a small guitar he acquired during his time in New York City. The musician’s wrinkles deepened as he chuckled that he has “never had a car” and has always taken public transit.
Public transit can help communities become healthier — both physically and mentally. It can grant people access to healthy food, activities, employment and medical services, while reducing traffic crashes and air pollution. The social aspect of buses is also significant for riders like Sharpe. The connections spurred from conversations that take place both on and off the bus — where Sharpe said he talks to people and listens to them tell their stories — are special.
While buses have shown Sharpe new places all around the world, from Las Vegas to Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan, this time he said he was “going home.”
Winston-Salem is bumping up how much it spends on transit.
PHOTO BY GALE MELCHER
Guilford County’s Adopt-A-Mom helps expecting mothers navigate a complicated healthcare system
by Marielle Argueza | marielle@triad-city-beat.com
ove was in the middle of moving back to her hometown of Greensboro from Raleigh when she found out she was pregnant with her first child. It was 2020, and she and her husband had always wanted to start a family.
“I was happy, we’ve been trying to get pregnant for a while,” she said. But when the mom-to-be began to navigate the local healthcare system, her initial happiness turned into frustration.
In her first trimester, Love bounced from one OBGYN to another, never truly landing on one who asked her about her wants and needs or discussed any risks. She was constantly being referred to other providers and doctors.
“During my first pregnancy, I didn’t have one OBGYN. I was told to go to one provider, and then another,” said Love, who agreed to share her story on the condition of anonymity. “And I always felt like I was having to explain myself over and over, so that provider could get to know me.”.
The problem was with Love’s insurance. For some prospective mothers like Love, insurance didn’t cover enough expenses or they didn’t have coverage at all. And that lack can have real medical consequences. But for the past two decades ago, a program in Guilford Countyhas been working to fill that gap and provide mothers with highquality care.
Widening the safety net
At the time of her first pregnancy, Love had a high-deductible plan through her job as a mental-health professional. Though it covered her primary care well enough, it gave her few options when she became pregnant. From a lack of choice in providers to pricey co-pays for pregnancyrelated services, her care was minimal, inconsistent and expensive.
“I had a plan where I had to pay like $6,000 before they would pay for anything,” Love said.
The price for maternal care cost Love around $400 per month. In her second trimester, she routinely visited an OBGYN working for the Guilford County Health Department. When she went to the receptionist, she was informed that her appointments were going to continue to come with a hefty price tag. But there was help.
They told her that Guilford County residents could receive financial aid from a program called Adopt-A-Mom, run by Every Baby Guilford County. The program could help cover her expenses for maternal care if she was ineligible for Medicaid. She was.
For Love, Adopt-A-Mom did more than help with expenses. It finally gave her the pregnancy and birthing experience she wanted.
Love is what the Guilford County Department of Health considers “underinsured.”
According to the most recent Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey done in 2022, people who are underinsured have access to health insurance all year “but their coverage doesn’t enable affordable access to health care.”
The same survey found that 43 percent of working-age adults were inadequately insured: 9 percent were uninsured, 11 percent had gaps in coverage, and the remaining 23 percent were underinsured. This is despite record highs in national coverage.
Being underinsured or not insured at all causes financial hardship for pregnant people. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the high costs of pregnancy hinders people from getting early care and therefore increases the chance of pregnancy
complications — including infant mortality.
That’s something experts in Guilford County have known for decades.
In 1988, a group of local medical practitioners studied the reasons behind the high rates of infant mortality and found that many pregnant people were either underinsured or didn’t qualify for Medicaid.
And as is the case nationwide,Black people suffered the highest level of infant mortality .
To help eliminate disparities in prenatal care and parenthood, county officials created the nonprofit Guilford County Coalition on Infant Mortality in 1991. Three years later, they launched Adopt-a-Mom which helps coordinate prenatal care for expectant parents who are ineligible for Medicaid and who are experiencing a low- to medium-risk pregnancy.
Jean Workman, the executive director of Every Baby Guilford, defines a low- to medium-risk pregnancy as a pregnancy in which the birthing person has normal blood pressure and isn’t dealing with gestational diabetes.
“This means if they were able to get into early care, they’re not having to mitigate any issues,” said Workman. In other words, if the barrier to a safe pregnancy can be helped with regular appointments and financial support, Adopt-a-Mom can help.
Higher-risk pregnancies are usually defined by other health conditions and age.
Adopt-a-Mom works by developing relationships with various OBGYNs across the county, asking them to provide services to their clients at reduced prices. This year Adopt-a-Mom has contracted with seven providers
Their clients get to choose from the list of providers, and the program covers the cost of the visit. They also negotiate discounted rates for lab work and ultrasounds on their clients’ behalf.
Although the first major racial disparity the county found was between Black and
Elbia L. Altamirez is a patient coordinator for Adopt-A-Mom.
PHOTO BY MAAROUPI SANI
white people, Workman is also worried about another growing population of Adopt-aMom clients: Uninsured Hispanic. Since 2020, Workman and her team found that there was an increasing need in the Hispaniccommunity. She guesses that it might be from a general increase in the Latino population as a whole.
Since the 2020 census, Guilford County has seen about a 10 percent increase in the Latino population. As of 2019, there were about 15,000 people with an “unauthorized” status, the majority of which are from Mexico. Forty-two percent were female and mostly of reproductive age. For Adopt-a-Mom, that figure is relevant because it means more people who are ineligible for Medicaid. The lack of a safety net like Medicaid creates a culture of reaction versus prevention. Elbia Altamirez, patient coordinator for Adopt-A-Mom, explains that when people lack insurance or are underinsured they’re less likely to attend regularly scheduled check-ups, or take over-the-counter medications for chronic symptoms, and only interact with the local healthcare system in costly emergency room visits. And that same thinking doesn’t change with pregnancy.
“A lot of individuals that we serve, since they don’t have or they don’t qualify for Medicaid, they don’t have medical coverage and they don’t have the means to pay for that,” Altamirez said. “So 90 percent of the time they are not even enrolled in medical practices.”
Many states have some version of Medicaid or CHIP —the government-subsidized health insurance program for kids — of Medicaid expansion. Some are for “lawfully residing” immigrants, or there are some expansions just for pregnant undocumented immigrants, or only for undocumented children. Some states like Florida and Arizona have a limited waiver.
Just this year, California became the first state in the nation to expand healthcare to undocumented immigrants through their low-income state insurance program MediCal. North Carolina also recently expanded its Medicaid coverage in December 2023, but only by income limits, which Wakeman said helped a lot more Black families find coverage.
“Unfortunately Medicaid expansions [in NC] have never covered undocumented immigrants,” said Wakemen. “But that’s why our programming needs more support than ever.”
Since itsfounding, Adopt-A-Mom has helped nearly 10,000 people.
“And it’s only growing,” said Altamirez.
Improving outcomes for the most vulnerable
Love chose to have a home birth for both of her pregnancies — the most recent baby, another boy, came last October. For her, the choice came easily. Advocating for one’s own medical and mental health is something she helps her own clients do as a mental health professional.
“They were pretty open to it,” Love said about the program’s support. “I let them know pretty early on like, ‘Hey, I’m not a radical. If there’s something that you feel like I need, I’m always open and receptive to that.’ Whatever [clinicians] recommend, I’ll go back, do some research and when I come back, I have an answer as to if I would like to move forward with this or not, and I’ll tell you why.’ But I do like to make those informed decisions.”
he’s well aware that the experience for other pregnant people may not be as smooth.
“I’ve heard other stories with women who go to a provider and the provider is kind of against whatever it is that they want and so they don’t feel comfortable saying things like, ‘I’m having a home birth,’” she said. “Some people keep that a secret, when in reality is, you know, everyone’s on the same page or outcomes can be better.”
It’s a story that is common for a lot of people, but particularly for Black people. According to the Center for Disease and Control, Black women are three times more likely to die of pregnancy complications compared to white women even though 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.
Those statistics echo in Guilford County. Despite Adopt-A-Mom’s efforts, and the overall infant mortality rate trending down, Black babies still make up the majority of infant deaths in the county. Adopt-a-Mom’s 2022 Report shows that Black babies make up 52 percent of all infant deaths
According to the Commonwealth Fund, things like lack of empathy, the failure to hire and retain Black doctors, lack of communication, poor outpatient follow-ups, a long racist history with unethical medical experiments on Black bodies (some of the most egregious are in the field of obstetrics and gynecology), and other elements contribute to the high rate of medical mistrust within Black communities. So Love isn’t surprised
that Black maternal mortality is in the headlines these days.
“I can only imagine someone that doesn’t have my level of experience and knows how to navigate certain systems and do research,” she said. “They would probably feel very hurt [by the healthcare system].”
But there is a growing movement nationwide to change that. Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) and Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ohio), for instance, established the Black Maternal Health Caucus which aims to make improvements in Black maternal care and pregnancy outcomes a national priority.
“The statistics around Black maternal health are horrifying, and they haven’t improved in 30years as maternal health outcomes overall have worsened,” said Rep. Underwood in a press release announcing the caucus’s founding “But this issue extends beyond statistics for too many women and families, it’s their reality.” .
Then there is the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, or BMAA. The group serves as a resource and podium that amplifies the work of their 40 partners which are locallybased organizations that provide various services. Atlanta Doula Collective for example, provides professional labor support and sometimes even at a discounted rate when funding is available.
Another BMAA partner is Black Health New Mexico. The organization is part practice, part health educator, and part advocacy group. They’ve created a mental health program for new parents, contributed to a curriculum for young parents and have helped galvanize practitioners and organizations for equity in Black and BIPOC health. What all of BMAA’s partners have in common is they all work to advance Black maternal health, rights, and justice.
As for Love, she’s grateful she had a local program like Adopt-A-Mom for both of her pregnancies. It allowed her to meet with her doula who introduced her to a lactation specialist. Her doula even began attending birth classes with her and her husband. Both of her pregnancies were healthy, and both went according to her plan.
“When it comes to birth, so many people are unprepared,” she said. “It’s not enough for it to be just you. You really need some people in your village to be a part of it.”
Can we end John Faircloth’s legacy?
by Brian Clarey
long with Sen. Joyce
Kraweic (Forsyth) and former Rep. John Hardister (Guilford), Rep. John Faircloth (High Point) joined the slew of statelevel Republicans who announced their retirement from public life this year.
We acknowledge Faircloth’s many years of service to the NC Legislature — he was first elected in 2010, unopposed, the same year Republicans took over the state legislature in more than 100 years and two years after Barack Obama won the state in his presidential run.
Those events are connected.
a court order would be required to obtain any body-camera footage from any law enforcement agency in the state.
In that time, Marcus Smith was killed by Greensboro police, provable only by the hard-won body-cam footage the department eventually released. John Neville was killed by staff at the Forsyth County Jail, which was established by the publicly released body camera footage.
Make bodycamera footage public record.
Now, at the end of Faircloth’s career, let’s take the opportunity to dismantle the worst law he ever sponsored, with the most far-reaching consequences.
Back in 2016, HB 972 declared that police body-camera footage, every minute of it, would not be considered public record. From the moment Gov. Pat McCrory signed it on July 11, 2016,
Even municipalities like the city of Greensboro have to get the approval of a Superior Court judge before seeing footage of their own police departments. Let’s flip this one, making public record the default on police body-camera footage, and requiring a court order to suppress the footage contained therein. And while we’re at it, let’s require all law enforcement officers in NC to wear body cameras while on duty — surely there’s some room in the state budget for more cop stuff — and stiffen penalties for turning them off or wearing malfunctioning equipment.
We know Rep. Cecil Brockman (D-High Point) has an interest and a few favors in the pipeline. We say it’s time for him to make his move.
Jen Sorensen jensorensen.com
Courtesy of NC Policy Watch
CULTURE
‘Objects Can’t Lie’ Japanese WWII flags found by the GSO History Museum tell the story of loss, family trauma and reconciliation
by Sayaka Matsuoka | sayaka@triad-city-beat.com
This story was published in collaboration with the Assembly, a statewide news organization that publishes stories about place and power.
Late afternoon light poured into a back room of the Greensboro History Museum as staffers gathered to examine artifacts splayed before them on a table. Black and white photos, oval-shaped dog tags, postcards of women in kimonos, a sake cup, and two Japanese flags are among the relics—all items dating back to World War II that had been donated in years past.
Ayla Amon, curator of collections at the museum, said local WWII enthusiast Doug Dickerson donated a bulk of the items between 1982 and 2002. When he passed away in 2011, most of his remaining collection went to the museum, including one of the flags. The other was donated by J. Johnston in 1948, for whom the museum has no background information.
Known as a yosegaki hinomaru, or a “good luck flag,” the silk pennants were a traditional send-off gift for Japanese soldiers, primarily during the second World War. The white banner, marked with the bright red circle representing the sun in the center, included signatures and messages from family members, friends, neighbors, and coworkers that radiated outwards from the center, like rays of the sun.
In modern times, yosegaki hinomaru are used during sporting events or after natural disasters. In the wake of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, people around Japan wrote notes on them to show support. When Miho Nakata broke the women’s 24-hour marathon record in 2023, she sprinted around the track with a flag.
In the midst of war, American soldiers would find these personal belongings on the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers—often ones they had just killed in battle—and bring them home as souvenirs, Amon explained.
“It was kind of a free-for-all,” Amon said. “Souvenir-taking is something that has been ingrained in war history for a long time. And I think sometimes rather than getting a weapon like a gun or something that was state-issued, getting these things was more of a marker.”
Decades later, it’s often the descendants of American soldiers who find the flags when cleaning out their relatives’ homes. Across North Carolina, a number of them have been discovered in the last few years. The Greensboro History Museum and other organizations are now working to return the flags to their rightful owners and bring closure to families back in Japan.
The actions follow a growing trend within institutions and families: righting the wrongs of the past, no matter how difficult the subject matter. In an increasingly politically
hostile environment where teaching history fuels accusations of bias, museums and individuals are pushing back by telling the truth about these highly sensitive artifacts.
“Objects can’t lie,” Amon said. “They’re a very visceral physical way for people to understand what can be very difficult, complex history, or just history they haven’t heard of before ... Objects are a fundamental piece of history that cannot be disputed in many ways.”
A shift in museum ideologies
The Greensboro History Museum, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in November, stores thousands of artifacts like these Japanese mementos in a huge attic. Much of what’s in there is largely unknown to the public and the staff itself, Amon said. She only found the artifacts when she was looking for other WWII objects for a display.
“It was a visceral reaction on my part,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh, these don’t belong here. They should go home.’”
Cultural institutions around the world are among a growing movement to repatriate items seized from individuals, countries, or tribes without consent or by force.
In December 2023, the Biden administration revised federal regulations regarding the repatriation of items back to native tribes. That led the Museum of Natural History in New York to close two of its halls exhibiting Native American artifacts in January. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art also returned more than a dozen sculptures to Cambodia and Thailand.
But items like the Japanese WWII artifacts at the Greensboro museum aren’t covered under the new rules. Instead, it’s up to individual organizations to decide what to do. Amon said other museums have recently started writing policies outlining which materials they won’t add to their collection.
“I think it’s a good shift for the field,” Amon said.
It’s also part of an ongoing conversation among museum staff about both their role in the community and of a museum in general.
“I think it’s really important for transparency’s sake, for our stewardship’s sake that communities understand what material we have,” Amon said. “And that if there’s anything that belongs more properly elsewhere that we’re willing to send it elsewhere.”
It’s what she calls “voluntary ethical repatriation.”
Staff at the Greensboro History Museum discovered two yosegaki hinomaru, or Japanese “good luck flags” in their archives last year.
PHOTO BY SAYAKA MATSUOKA
Amon’s previous work at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. influenced how she thinks about these objects.
“I think I’ve just kind of been attuned throughout my career to question what something is, why it’s in a collection, how it got there, and how it should be interpreted,” she said.
So when Amon found the objects among the more than 600,000 pieces in the museum’s collection, she knew she had to learn more. That’s when she came across the Obon Society.
The search for thousands of flags ounded in 2009 by Keiko and Rex Ziak, the Obon Society is a nonprofit organization based in Oregon that is doing the difficult work of repatriating yosegaki hinomaru back to Japanese families.
The organization’s name stems from the popular Japanese holiday Obon. It takes place in the summer and is when families clean their ancestral graves in preparation for the return of their relatives’ spirits. It’s a reflection of the work they are trying to do, Rex Ziak said.
The nonprofit worked for years to find yosegaki hinomaru like the one found at the Greensboro History Museum and reconnect them to families in Japan.
“Museums want to do the right thing,” he said. “These objects are living objects, these aren’t something that is going to some country; this is going back to a family.”
And for his wife, Keiko, the work is deeply personal. As a child growing up in Japan, her mother, Yasuko, would take her to the family grave in Kyoto where she would point to where her grandfather’s remains should have been.
“There’s nothing buried there,” her mother told her.
Such is the reality for many Japanese family members of young men sent to fight during WWII. Due to the nature of Japan’s defeat and subsequent unconditional surrender in 1945, more than 1 million Japanese soldiers were declared missing in action. As a point of comparison, the number of U.S. soldiers missing in action was around 70,000.
That meant that when the government reached out to the families of the deceased, they couldn’t return bodies for cremation, as is customary in Japan. Instead, they sent a single rock with a death notice from the government.
“It was the government’s way of saying, ‘There’s nothing coming back; bury this rock,’” said Rex.
In the aftermath of the war, the absence of a body or any personal effects from her father left Yasuko distraught. The family never talked about him; he became a kind of ghost.
“I didn’t understand World War II or what happened to my grandfather,” Keiko said. “Nobody talked about him. I had no knowledge.”
That all changed when a surprising artifact was discovered and returned to the family in 2007. More than 6,000 miles away in Toronto, Canada, a military collector on his deathbed wrote in his will that he wanted his son to return a Japanese flag marked
by dozens of signatures to its country of origin.
The collector’s son took the flag on a business trip and stopped in Tokyo, where he left it with hotel staff. They then worked for about a year to find the soldier’s original family members, placing ads in the local newspaper and spreading the word. Eventually, the flag made it back to Keiko’s mother.
“My mother said, ‘It’s my father’s spirit that wanted to come back home,’” Keiko said. “As a granddaughter, it was a lightning strike; it was so amazing. It was a miracle experience.”
A few years later when Keiko met Rex, a historian and photographer, she shared her family’s story. That set off a chain of events in which Rex, driven by his unending curiosity, found that there were not just hundreds, but likely thousands of other flags out in the world. The two started the Obon Society a few years later.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Keiko said. “There were more miracles.”
During the first year of operation, they found four flags, one of them through a chance interaction with a veteran. The next year, they got 15. Eventually, the Obon Society started receiving as many as 96 flags every year. According to Rex, it took four years to repatriate the first flag.
“My goal is to return 360 flags per year,” he said.
They’ve now successfully returned 750 flags to Japan.
Because these artifacts are so personal to the families, Rex has started calling them “nonbiological human remains.”
But their work faces many barriers.
First, many of those who find these flags don’t read Japanese and don’t understand their significance. Secondly, because Japan engaged in a complete surrender, many in the Japanese government aren’t keen on engaging in repatriation efforts for WWII soldiers. In their minds, doing so means reopening old wounds and admitting, in part, that the U.S. did irreparable damage to Japan, Rex explained.
Still, the organization has had some supporters like former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who met with the Obon Society before he was assassinated in 2022.
Across North Carolina, a number of individuals have found flags and contacted the organization. And though the known number of flags found in the state so far is minimal, advocates of this movement say there are likely many more around the world.
“We estimate that 100,000 flags still exist and are waiting to go back to Japan,” Keiko said.
The process of finding family members can be long and laborious. Once the flags are sent to the Obon Society in Oregon, volunteers input all known information into their database. Then they reach out to their archivist contacts in Japan, who photograph the items and safely store them while getting to work finding the family. They’ll use names on the flags or pinpoint any locations, like the shrine the family frequented, that are written on the silk.
Because each flag is unique, Rex likens the layers of kanji, or Japanese characters, to strands of DNA.
“That writing can be read and deciphered to precisely the same family,” he said.
Rex and Keiko Ziak started the Obon Society in 2009 after being spurred on by Keiko’s personal family history of reconnection with her grandfather’s flag.
PHOTO COURTESY OF OBON SOCIETY
The family of Japanese soldier Fumio Tanaka poses with the flag found and returned by Michele Simons. The man at center, Masayuki Tanaka, is Fumio’s brother.
PHOTO COURTESY OF OBON SOCIETY
For example, the flags found in Greensboro belonged to two Japanese soldiers named Katsuo Wada and Mankichi Yokokawa based on the deciphered writing.
Still, it’s impossible to know how long the process might take. In the case of the flags sent from Greensboro, the organization was still working on finding the families as of this month.
One of the other artifacts, a military booklet, was recently repatriated by the Obon Society to Japan. Amons said that the flags would likely take a bit longer.
Treasures in dresser drawers
As a child, Michele Simons of Holly Springs caught glimpses of the yosegaki hinomaru in her mother’s dresser drawer as she helped put away laundry. When her mother died in 2000, the flag was moved to a plastic bin under Simons’ bed for years — that is, until she saw a TV program at the end of 2019.
Simons’ father, Matthew Verban, had been stationed in Southeast Asia during WWII. Like many men of his generation, he didn’t talk about the war. Even after his death in 1996, Simons’ mother didn’t explain the foreign artifacts that she inherited.
“I don’t think they were trying to hide anything,” Simons said. “It was an adult thing, and we were children and it just wasn’t discussed.”
But when Simons learned about the Obon Society from a television news segment, she immediately reached out to her family members. She asked if they would be okay with her returning the flag to the organization, and contacted the Obon Society in February 2020.
For a few months, Simons didn’t hear anything. Then in May 2020, she received an email from the organization along with a photo of a Japanese family holding the same flag she had packed up and sent in the mail just three months earlier.
“I was in tears,” Simons said. “I couldn’t believe that they found the family; I just thought it was fabulous.”
In the photo, Masayuki Tanaka stands in the center directly behind the flag. His wife is on his left side and their eldest son stands to his right, gripping one corner of the fabric. Behind them, his son’s wife and their two daughters peek out.
“We are certain that the man in the middle is Masayuki Tanaka, eldest [brother] of
the missing soldier,” Obon Society wrote in an email to Simons in 2020. “So now, this grandfather is alive within their family for the first time, and will live on with the son and his children.”
Simons was touched that the flag had been returned. It made her think of her father going to war.
“We did the same in this country when we sent our soldiers off to war,” she said. “They loved their sons or brothers or uncles or nephews just as much as we loved ours … They have the right and should be able to have it for their family and to pass it down to their children because this was clearly something that was very important to them.
“Had it been my family, had the role been reversed, I would have hoped that someone would have done the same,” she said.
Now, Simons only wishes she had checked her belongings sooner.
“I’d like people to go look at the bins under their beds,” she said.
That’s partly why Amon and Glenn Perkins, the Greensboro History Museum’s curator of community history, hosted a virtual event in which they talked about the items in their collection earlier this year.
“It shows people like, ‘Hey, did you find one of those in your attic?’” Amon said.
“Hopefully it’s a way to reach out into the broader general community especially when we have so many of our WWII veterans who have either recently passed away or are passing away. I wouldn’t be surprised if people are finding this kind of material.”
Simons agrees.
“We’re getting to a point where we’re going to be many generations from the war,” she said. “And the further we get away from the war, the less people will know about it.”
‘Healing beyond PTSD’
Despite the increasing cultural relevance of this work, the Obon Society is a small team of volunteers. They have minimal funding and hope to spend the next few years on fundraising and business management.
Even so, their efforts are gaining traction. Earlier this year, Rex Ziak was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays by the Japanese government, in recognition of “promoting understanding of Japan in the United States and friendly relations between the two countries.”
“We’re transforming hated enemies to trusted allies,” he said. “This is a poster story of what peace looks like.”
As part of the repatriation process, several American families have joined the Ziaks in Japan to meet the descendants of the soldiers. In at least one instance, an American soldier who fought in WWII returned a flag that he had found 73 years ago to the soldier’s brother. The stories of families reconnecting with the flag are captured on the Obon Society’s YouTube channel, and almost always, they are tearful.
“This is not just a piece of textile coming home,” Rex said. “This is the spirit of that young man coming back as much as if it was any other part of him. The spirit of these soldiers are in these flags, and they want to go home, and they’ve been wanting to go home.”
To Amon, this shows that the Greensboro History Museum did the “right thing” by sending the flags to the Obon Society.
“When you bring an object into a museum, you’re pleading to care for it for the rest of its life, or as I like to say, ‘forever ever,’” Amon said. “And it’s important that we acknowledge that we can’t keep everything forever ever and that some things definitely would be better cared for elsewhere.”
For her next project, Amon plans to search the rest of the donations to determine if anything else can be repatriated to other countries and families.
And even if the items are no longer in their collection, Perkins says that telling this story is as much part of their work as displaying the physical objects.
“We’re not necessarily sending its story away,” Perkins said. “By maintaining the records of the object’s time here in Greensboro, we can use it to shine a light on tough subjects.”
The Ziaks feel their work also gives peace, allowing families to grapple with intergenerational trauma.
“I’m proud of being Japanese and doing this,” Keiko said. “I’m proud to show that this flag brings history to the present and to the future … It’s healing beyond PTSD. You can’t change the past, but you can learn and change the future.”
CULTURE
‘You have to know the history’ Inaugural Burlesk Con of the Carolinas aims to educate, celebrate artform of burlesque
by Sayaka Matsuoka | sayaka@triad-city-beat.com
There’s a reason why Selia d’Katzmeow Carmichael spells burlesque with a “k” instead.
According to historians, burlesque — the art form featuring comedy, music and dance — has its origins in the Victorian era. By the late 1800s and into the early 20th Century, the term became synonymous with strippers, and during the “golden age” of burlesque from about 1900-30, there were about 200 burlesque theaters in America. But the onset of Prohibition and movies drove the art form into the shadows and by the mid century, it was a dying art.
“[Burlesque] went underground in the ’70s and ’80s; it started to become less well-known,” Carmichael explains. “Women were being censored; if they were on TV, they would be on late night and they banned certain words like ‘burlesque.’”
That’s how the word, in some realms, came to use phrases like “burly q” or alternative spellings like “burlesk.” And that’s how Carmichael, who has been performing since the mid nineties, prefers it.
Burlesk Con of the Carolina takes (it all) off on Friday, July 4 at Single Bros. Tickets and the entire schedule can be found at triadcity-beat.evvnt.events/ events/burlesk-con-ofthe-carolinas.
“It’s a throwback to one of the words they would use in lieu of actual burlesque,” she says.
These days , Carmichael says when she’s backstage at shows she tells younger performers about the complicated history of their profession. Many are surprised to hear the stories.
“They just look so wide-eyed,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Tell me more.’”
So to preserve that history and to tell those stories, Carmichael and others will be hosting the first Burlesk Con of the Carolinas starting on July 4. Hosted at multiple locations around Winston-Salem, the inaugural event will feature local legends, informative panels, varied performances and a competition.
“It’s to celebrate who we have and the history and legacy we have here,” Carmichael says. “Because we do have a legacy.”
Carmichael says she was inspired by the Miss Exotic World Pageant, an annual event hosted in June at the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Seeing so many dancers and strippers gather once a year for the festival made Carmichael want to start a gathering locally, too. The idea was to invite performers from the Carolinas, teach the history and preserve their art.
In planning for the event, Carmichael says she unearthed a lesser-known performer named Willa Mae Buckner. Born almost a century ago in Augusta, Ga., Buckner was known by many stage names including “The Wild Enchantress” and “The Snake Lady.” As a Black woman performing burlesque decades ago, Carmichael says that Buckner faced harsh discrimination throughout her life. She passed away in 2000 at the age of 77 in Winston-Salem.
“She was a city transit driver,” Carmichaels says of Buckner in her later years. “She had done all this really cool stuff…. This woman’s story is wonderful. Her legacy is blues
and burlesque.”
As a woman without any children, Carmichael says that Buckner’s story is in danger of being forgotten. To preserve that history, she submitted Buckner’s story to the museum in Las Vegas, but the entry was declined. That only motivated Carmichael to ensure that those who live locally would know her name.
That’s why this year’s con will be dedicated to Buckner.
“It bothered me that her legacy was not carried on,” she says.
The opening night of the convention will take place at Single Bros, where multiple acts will kick things off. Scheduling the opening there is a callback to the city’s Heavy Rebel Weekender festival during which Carmichael would host the Wiggle Room, a burlesque celebration. Friday night will see a competition of performers, while Saturday and Sunday will feature variety shows and drag performances. The Sunday brunch is also when they will have a speaker panel of experts to talk about the historical context of burlesque in the area.
“To do this artform, you have to know the history,” Carmichael says.
It’s especially important when other artforms like drag performances are being met with harassment from right-wing politicians and extremists, she says. To Carmichael, the arts of drag, stripping and burlesque are all under the same tent, so to speak.
“We cannot exist without each other,” she says.
They play off one another and are in conversation with each other. And that’s because the main throughline of them all is the understanding of consent
“Some people ask, ‘How can taking your clothes off me be empowering?’” Carmichael says. “It’s about consent… A fist in the air kind of thing.”
The more people know the history, the more people will understand the artforms, she says. And that’s only going to make the community better.
“I’m hoping this will light a fire under other people to pass down these awesome stories,” she says. “To ignite that passion in the younger generation to continue that tradition…. It’s about asking, What can we do to better it?”
Selia d’Kaztmeow Carmichael has been performing burlesque since the mid nineties.
COURTESY PHOTO
SHOT IN THE TRIAD
BY CAROLYN DE BERRY
Fisher Park Circle, Greensboro
Summer night, June.
SUMMER ON FOURTH
JUNE 15
WEST END MAMBO
4TH ST. IN FRONT OF FOOTHILLS BREWING
Thu 6/27
Gabe Lee
@ 6pm
Steel Hands Brewing, 1918 W Gate City Blvd, Greensboro
Miss North Carolina Pageant
@ 7pm
High Point Theatre - NC, High Point
Creative Greensboro presents Meredith
Willson's The Music Man
@ 7:30pm / $15-$20
Virginia Sommerville Sutton Theatre, 4100 Well Spring Drive, Greensboro
Poeticlee
@ 8pm
Bar Nola, 1151 Canal Dr Suite 205, Winston-Salem
Fri 6/28
Miss North Carolina Pageant
@ 7pm
High Point Theatre - NC, High Point
@souljammusic: Souljam @ Wise Man
@ 8pm
Wise Man Brewing, 826 Angelo Bros Ave, WinstonSalem
Alter Egos Band @ 8pm The Ramkat & Gas Hill Drinking Room, 170 W 9th St, Winston-Salem
Sat 6/29
Creative Greensboro presents Meredith
Willson's The Music Man
@ 7:30pm / $15-$20
Virginia Sommerville Sutton Theatre, 4100 Well Spring Drive, Greensboro
Miss North Carolina Pageant @ 7:30pm High Point Theatre - NC, High Point
Sun 6/30
Sunday Yoga @ SouthEnd Brewing Co. @ 10am / $5 SouthEnd Brewing Co, 117b West Lewis Street, Greensboro
Creative Greensboro presents Meredith Willson's The Music Man @ 2pm / $15-$20
Virginia Sommerville Sutton Theatre, 4100 Well Spring Drive, Greensboro
Outatime!: Bardown BreakTourWinston-Salem, NC @ 6pm The Den, 3756 Ogburn Ave, Winston-Salem
MUSEP series presents Africa Unplugged @ 6pm
Barber Park, 1500 Barber Park Dr, Greensboro
Tue 7/02
French Cuisine @ 6pm / $63.04 Reto's Kitchen, 600 South Elam, Greensboro
Wed 7/03
Reed Foley: Bolt, White and Blue Stadium Party @ 6pm BB&T Ballpark, 951 Ballpark Way, Winston-Salem
Justin Jeansonne: Movin On Up Tour @ 8pm Flat Iron, 221 Summit Ave, Greensboro
Thu 7/04
Burlesk Con of The Carolinas @ 6pm / $15-$400 Jul 4th - Jul 7th
Burlesk Con of The Car‐olinas, 621 Trade Street Northwest, Winston Salem
Greensboro Grasshoppers vs. Aberdeen Ironbirds
@ 6:30pm First National Bank Field, Greensboro
Fri 7/05
Tony Andrews @ 7pm
Little Brother Brewing, 221 N Main St, Kernersville
VIVA LE VOX @ 8pm
The Ramkat & Gas Hill Drinking Room, 170 W 9th St, Winston-Salem
The Malamondos @ 8pm
The Ramkat & Gas Hill Drinking Room, 170 W 9th St, Winston-Salem
Sat 7/06
Repticon Reptile and Exotic Animal Show @ 9am
Winston-Salem Fairgrounds, 569 Fairgrounds Boulevard, Winston-Salem
Detest The Throne: The Flesh Prevails 10th Anniversary Tour @ 6pm Hangar 1819, 1819 Spring Garden St, Greensboro
Winston-Salem Dash vs. Hickory Crawdads @ 7pm
Truist Stadium, Greensboro
Sun 7/07
Repticon Reptile and Exotic Animal Show @ 9am
Winston-Salem Fairgrounds, 569 Fairgrounds Boule‐vard, Winston-Salem
Tue 7/09
Livin' La Vida Tequila Pairing Dinner @ 6:30pm / $90
Livin’ la Vida Loca! Join us on July 9th for a night of inspired, vibrant �avors and carefully curated tequi‐las! 5 Courses - 5 Tequilas - Unlimited Good Vibes! $90/ticket Footnote Coffee & Cocktails, 634 West 4th Street, Winston-Salem. heidi@foothillsbrewing.com, 336-705-9921
Greensboro Grasshoppers vs. WinstonSalem Dash @ 6:30pm
First National Bank Field, Greensboro
Rain - A Tribute To The Beatles @ 7:30pm
Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, 300 North Elm Street, Greensboro
Wed 7/10
Danny Worsnop @ 7pm
Hangar 1819, 1819 Spring Garden St, Greensboro
Calendar information is provided by event organiz‐ers. All events are subject to change or cancellation. This publication is not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in this calendar.
PUZZLES & GAMES
by Matt Jones
CROSSWORD SUDOKU
by Matt Jones
Across
1. Makes noise, like a microwave
6. 2008 Liam Neeson thriller
11. Some lab fixtures
14. “___ last I see the light” (“Tangled” lyric)
15. Nearsighted horned beast
16. Official language in Vientiane
17. Guest list for a private party?
19. The whole thing
20. “Iliad” warrior god
21. Pen tips
22. Studio 54, for one
24. Cheers
26. ‘50s experiment, briefly
28. Author of “The Namesake” and “Whereabouts”
32. Wild diving duck
34. Key near F1
35. Status ___
36. Some chess pieces
37. Salty expanse
38. Denim jacket ornaments for punks, once
40. Friend in France
41. “Ew”
42. Filled with ennui
43. Indescribable thing
47. Cut back, as a branch
48. Says
51. One of many Peyo characters
53. No, to Nabokov
55. Spinnaker or jib
57. Hot goo
58. Australian actor in “Saltburn”
61. Mid-show filler
62. “I’m only ___ mortal ...”
63. “The Floor” head-to-heads
64. Comb creator
65. Lance Bass’s group
66. Throat infection type
Down
1. ___ California
2. Make accustomed (to)
3. ‘50s Ford fiasco
4. Notable retiree of June 2024
5. Place to swine and dine?
6. Axiom
7. Moby-Dick’s chaser
8. Congolese capital
9. Conclude
10. “Beats me”
11. Brick that goes boom
12. AP math subject
13. Perform without backup
18. Outperform
23. “... or something like that”
25. As follows
27. “No Scrubs” group
29. Cheats at cards, maybe
30. “Ant-Man” star Paul
31. Platform that runs on Apple devices
32. Not much
33. Place to take a penny, leave a penny?
36. “The Big Bang Theory” character
37. Sorta academic-sounding, in a way
38. Fireplace buildup
39. Auditions
41. Suffix with Dickens
42. Montana mining city
44. Blow it
45. Stevens who inspired the musical “Illinoise”
46. Province where poutine supposedly originated
49. Not so common
50. Move sneakily
51. Attempt
52. Manufactured
54. “Strange Condition” singer Pete
56. Second-oldest programming language that’s still in use (behind Fortran)
59. Breakfast hrs.
60. Brigham Young’s gp.
