Transcripts For CSPAN2 Wilmington Literary Walking Tour 20170319

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>> as we continue our coverage of wilmington, join us as we take you on a literary walking tour of the city. >> i wanted to put together the literary tour not owing to shine a light and what's happening now but what our history includes. i thin there's also a piece of this which is that there is still association and a lot of peoples minds that the south is not a place of intellectual advancement and success and accomplishment. and having lived here my whole life i have certainly found that that is not the case, and i am continually startled and frustrated by the number of people come to visit the bookstore and are stunned that i seek cash but i speak in complete census and a read. i'm glad to know that you think that my -- or carl sandburg couldn't read or write or that thomas wilkes couldn't read or write, were all writers of north carolina. and so i really come it frustrated me a lot and i really wanted an opportunity to share our rich literary heritage with people. the first stop on our tour today's good to be the dixie grill. wilmington has played host to a lot of the sitting letters over the years and one of our most notable is to eliminate arthur miller. you might've heard of him. he won the pulitzer prize and is probably one of his most famous place was the crucible. we know arthur miller came to wilmington at least twice. the first time when we came to to wilmington was during the 1930s. he and tennessee williams both went to university of michigan by writing program at the both got jobs working for the works progress administration, federal arts of administration during the depression. tennessee being tennessee decide he would head off on a bicycle and the venture, but arthur miller has been very arthur miller like new england and strain, i signed up for something and do it. he toured up and an east coast collecting folklore that was later archived in washington. one of the things they were specifically looking for was to collect oral history from people i been alive during slavery. in the 1930s you could still make people aware at the very ends of the life you would live through slavery in the united states. that was really sort of one of the last chance if you're going to have it to collect first-person accounts of one of the sadder chapters of american history. and so later on john blair publisher start putting out a series of books on a state-by-state basis. the one for north carolina is called my folks don't want me to talk about slavery. there is one specifically virginia, one that's alabama, one that is mississippi, one that is on children, one that is only women. the second time we know arthur miller came to wilmington was in the early '90s. the last full-length movie that he wrote was called everybody wins, starred nick nolte and debra winger and it was filter. it's awful. and it is said that the man who wrote all my sons and death of a salesman ended his career with that but we don't hold it against him. so the next up on our tour today is the first presbyterian church. we are on third street which is one ofwilmington. you are probably wondering why are we stopping a first presbyterian church on a literary history walking tour? well, the answer is, preachers kids. you are also probably surprised by that answer. from 1874-1882, first presbyterian church minister had a son named woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson went on to become the 28th president of the united states. most of the time that his father was commissioner, he was away at school. first he was at davidson college north of charlotte by to get sick and he had to withdraw from school. he came over and he came on home delivery with the family while he was recuperating. then he reenrolled in school this time at johns hopkins university and there he met another young man from north carolina named thomas dixon. thomas dixon did a lot of things in a lifetime and one of them was that he wrote sensational romance novels and probably the only one most people never is the klansmen and the leopard spot. but you don't member than because of the book. you remember them because of those two books became birth of a nation. the film the became the first movie to be screened at the white house because thomas called his good friend woodrow wilson as it guess what, i made a movie and he said why did you come over and show it to me and that is how that happened. >> i think a lot of people are amazed at how much material recovered. recovery. we tell people we go 5095-2017 and it don't really think they are prepared for just like, we are stressing to get it in under two hours. we are trying hard to get in under two hours. >> so the next stop on our two is a stork failing all, a beautiful and of the upper house that was built to be both the our municipal building. we don't have a whole lot of lecture series and 20 century. probably the closest thing would be that talks it in the 19th century and early part of the twin century it was expected a couple times a week you would go here and experts speak on a topic for 45 minutes to two hours. among the many people who came to lecture here which was a a major stop on the lecture circuit when cleared oscar wilde came in on his record to the might've heard him, the importance of being earnest. william jennings bryan, frederick douglass spoke your and so did booker t. washington. something else would like to talk about at this point in the tour is one of my favorite playwrights, willis richardson. he was born in wilmington in the 1800s and his family left very, very suddenly in the fall of 1898. they moved to washington d.c. where he finished his schooling and get work at the bureau of engraving and printing. he went on to be the first african-american to the hit show broadway and it opened in may . he also put together this book, the place and pageants from the life of the negro. he edited this and included five plays of his own and it was used as a textbook in segregated schools for theater students. it begins with age-appropriate plays for kindergarten and goes through high school. he lived until the late 1970s, and during his lifetime in wilmington the theater company was started called the willis richardson player in his honor. they perform his work and the work of other minority playwrights and they put unusually two shows a year. they were very grateful to keep his legacy alive. what is that is we didn't have the entirety of his lifetime here with his work. -- what is sad. >> the next stop on our tour today is 1890 memorial. there are several books that have been written about 1898. 1898. i think you have met the author of "cape fear rising." also a moment in the sun by the film maker john sayles. we have taken the city by leon prather, and a day of blood. bubut i think one of the more brave books that has been written, and may oral traditions by charles chestnut. chestnut was born before the civil war to freed slaves and he was the first african-american to publish a sort story -- short story and atlantic magazine. his relationship would last most of the rest of his life and in 01 he published them mayral tradition, which was the story of what happened in wilmington written within two years and written by a person of color. he had to change anyone's name for his own safety, so we make composite characters and he changed the name of the city so it's not wilmington. it's wellington. when they review the book for the near times he said it is a book that has more justice and mercy in it. in addition commit to short stories that were made into films by this automaker in 1926, tales of conger and the color line made into the spider, and the house behind the theater in 1927 was made into the millionaire. because of his legal training, chestnut did a lot of work with the naacp. in 1917 he succeeded in getting prohibitions against a public screening of birth of a nation in a state of ohio. chestnutt died on november 15, 1932 at the age of 74. >> wilmington is also the burial place of several famous authors, including thomas gottfried, the first player in america, one of my favorite writers, english fletcher. you might not remember her now but in the 40s, \50{l1}s{l0}\'50{l1}s{l0} and 60s she was hot stuff on the "new york times" bestseller list. she was born after the civil war in the midwest and ship a life of an aristocratic daughter. she never cooked a meal or did any laundry until the day she married, then she married a man named john fletcher was a mining engineer. he moved her to a mining camp in california that was a two-day mule ride from the nearest other female person. a bit of a shock for her. but she persevered. she adjusted and that's when she started writing. she wrote short stories entertain herself. and then semi-she managed to connect with hollywood right when it was starting to develop, and she became one of the early screenwriters for the silent era. as they moved around with her husband job she continued writing. she did a couple of big game hunting books in africa and then she came to north carolina to connect with her ancestors and fell in love. that's when she started writing her carolina chronicle series, the books that would make her famous. i told her that james mishler of north carolina. he wrote those big epic films about a place hawaii, alaska, covenant. she did the most beautifully well researched history of north carolina, but because she was a woman, even though she was right at the same time as mr., then marketed her books as romances instead of serious fiction. there is just as much valid historical evidence and good quality literary writing in a work as it was in his. >> i hope the tour will serve two different purposes with regards to the literary legacy of north carolina. the first is i hope that people discover writers that they never encountered before, that broaden, not only broaden but deepen their understanding of our human experience and the southern experience, which i think is far more complex than many people realize.

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