The 314-foot R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Building, built completed in 1929 with 21 floors, located in downtown Winston-Salem, N.C. was the design inspiration for the Empire State Building completed in 1931. The staff of the Empire State Building would send a Father’s Day card to the staff at Reynolds acknowledging its kinship to the Reynolds Building.
I saw a piece of paper floating in the gentle breeze as I walked to work. The Carolina sky was blue and clear this spring morning, the air fresh. I noticed a piece of paper floating along the path as I walked. It was a handwriting letter. It began “Dear Son: I have started this letter a hundred times, and a hundred times I can never find the words to express my love for you. I know you and your lady friend are having problems but trouble don’t last always and you’ll find way to solve them. Put faith in God !..” And, the pain, and love from mother to son was evident from the letter, and I wished that I return the heartfelt letter to whomever lost it. I knew it had to be comforting to the son. Bu I needed to get to work at the barbershop because time is money, and I need dollar bills.
Stuffing the letter into my pocket, I decided to try and find the owner later because these were life-saving, hopeful words from a mother to a son — and could give the son hope in this difficult time.
Suddenly, I noticed a heavy set black man fleeing from a white police officer pulled his gun — then, the awful sound of gunfire. And, the horror of the scene hit me, the letter flew from my hand and gently drifted away into the morning sky.
Have you ever been to Harlem? Not today’s gentrified Harlem, but the Harlem of old: where Jazz was born with Duke Ellington; Harlem of James Baldwin and Billie Holiday. Harlem of Langston Hughes and his everyday people character like “Jess B. Simple”. Harlem of the A Train by Duke Ellington which told us about the quickest way to get across 110th Street where the working and black middle class live along Strivers’ Row (all of the elite black New Yorkers live along 138th and 139th streets between Eighth and Ninth avenues).
Bruno Mars captured a slice of old Harlem in his funky song “Uptown Funk You Up!”
Let’s stand on the corner of 125th and Lenox on Saturday night as the players, hustlers, and gorgeous ladies get ready to “show up and show out”. So Hot! make a Dragon Want to Retire Man. Here comes all the local Harlemites: there’s Tout Harlem, Red, Black Willie, Slim Goody, as they prepare to hit the Cotton Club (that they couldn’t get in during Prohibition Era), Small’s Paradise, Carl’s on the Corner (145th and Broadway) as they get ready to dance, finger pop till the early morning hours. If you’re shy stay at home, not a place for the faint hearted! And, you know there will be a fight over some beautiful, brown woman. So put on your Boxing Gloves, may the best man win!! Let’s go to the Theresa Hotel, and see who’s singing. Billie Holiday could be doing a set with Lester Young. Count Basie could be holding court! We’ll drink gin, dance, listen to jazz, fight and head for the nearest house party!
Let’s get some golden waffles, and fried chicken to soak up all that booze and sleep a couple hours.
Get up early and head for church to Praise the Lord! Get ready for work on Stormy Monday and look forward to the next time the eagle fly on Friday when we’ll do it again!
Uptown Will Funk You Up in a good way.
That Harlem is no more!!
Staring at the blank page is tough. To get beyond the block is gut wrenching like getting water from a rock. the writer, i should say me, can find any excuse not to site down and write. arrange furniture, getting a drink of water, checking your email. the distraction are many — watching your favorite televsion program or sports broadcast…looking out the window. But once you get pass that block maybe the ideas start to flow, and you can actually get something down on paper or the computer screen. thjat is after i call barnes and noble to check on buying writing to the bones. if i can get that book my writing problems will be solve, can really began to stretch creatively..It is also 9 a.m. and i can get on the phone and call the bookstore,a nd take up 15 minutes to avoid facing the writing tasks! I wonder if Hemingway, or Ben Hecht ( who in the hell is Ben Hecht? One of the greatest newspaper reporter/ writer/novelist/ screenwriters of the 20th Centurey. Ever heard of Scarface or the Front Page.) Writing leaves so much of yourself unprotected and causes so much fear as you want your audience to appreciate or respect what you have written. i think some writers feel/believe it is a rejection of your own humanity. But somewhere on anoterher level you reach that spirtual plane where you create art, and connect with the universal spirtual values that educate us all. Boy Stephen King certainly broke any writing block many years ago. How does he continue to crank out fiction, non-fiction, poetry(?) year after year. He is an amazing writer.
I will committ to writing at least 15 minutes each day, and once those writing muscles have developed hopefully I will extend that time by additional minutes, or hours. Does an artists ever get to the point where he ask him/herself is this the art form for me or am I deluding myself?
A.B. Nickerson
Writing can b e painful! Sitting in front of the computer staring at a blank screen seeking thoughts, any thoughts. Why do writers put themselves through this awful, agonizing process? What do we have to tell the world? Can we find some other way to speak to our audience? Procrastination is the best anecdote to tackling the page. Find anything to do. Watch television, watch a thousand sports events..time wasters.. Anything but tackling the blank page. Put words on pages is like stripping naked and running down the middle of Times Square. All of your warts, inhibitions, fantasies are put before the reading audience. But we continue to write in some cases hoping for fame, in other cases just hoping to be of some positive influence on the world.. I wonder if Baldwin, Ellison, Tennessee Williams faced these same dilemmas. I think one of the great writers was Ben Hecht who wrote the play “The Front Page”, and the screenplay “Scar face”. He wrote for many years at the old Chicago Daily News where he wrote about crime, culture, politics when newspapers were great laboratories for writing and presenting the “first draft of history”. What about the great Jimmy Breslin! Tom Wicker who wrote so eloquently about the Attica Rebellion in a “Time to Die”. But newspapers are dying, but the craft of great journalism maybe will live on in the blog sphere. I would have love to have covered big city politics during the prohibition era the big time gangsters, and crooked pols. Perhaps, I will discover the remains of Jimmy Hoffa! I remember a scene from a movie about newspaper/journalism that I believe Humphrey Bogart was in. Bogart and his newspaper had brought down the corrupt gangster, and as a denouement he sticks the phone into the press room as the presses started churning and Bogey said “you know what that sound is? That’s the sound of freedom”
The Civil War is not over! A case is presently before the Supreme Court to decide whether the State of Texas can refuse to sell specialty plates with the confederate battle flag emblem on it. By approving specialty plates with controversial message on it, is the state approving that message or is it the message of the individual? Sons of Confederate Veterans, after Texas refused to issue a license plate with confederate battle flag on it, sued the state and won at the district level, but the state appealed the decision to the high court. However, should the Supreme Court uphold the district court ruling would it open the door for other kinds of controversial tags, for example, with a swastika on it?
But some believe the courts should leave it to the states. http://archive.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=86610 This is a symbol of the “brave” men who wore the confederate uniform to uphold the principle of state rights.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Tx-D, House Judiciary Committee, said the SCV should find other ways to remember their confederate heritage. She saod “..No one wishes to deny our history as a state. But we as leaders should take every opportunity to support that which unites our citizenry — not that which divides us. Reminding those among us of their painful past has no place in celebrating our great state.”
What group began the rhythm and blues tradition? Well, some musical scholars say Hank Ballard, and , others say Sam Cooke or Ray Charles. But some argue that the 5 Royales were the originators of rhythm and blues with such as songs like “Dedicated to the One I Love” and “Think” that James Brown and Aretha Franklin recorded.
The Royales were probably the first group to bring the gospel into R&B, and their sound was the nascent beginning of a generation of soul music although, Rev. Tommy Dorsey is credited with bringing the blues beat into the church in the mid-1930s. The beautiful dual leads of Johnny and Eugene Tanner, supported by the guitar acrobatics of Lowman Pauling thrilled audiences for several decades, and catapulted the Royales to stardom.
On On April 18, the group will be recognized by being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. Legendary guitarists Steve Cropper who wrote such tunes as “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay” and “Knock On Wood” will have the honor of making the induction.
Members of the family and friends are trying to raise money for the trip to Cleveland by holding a “Sock Hop” on April 10 at the National Guard Armory, 2000 Silas Creek Pkwy., Winston-Salem, N.C. The cost is $20 per attendee to the dance.
Contact Bobby Ray Wilson at (336) 406-5138 or by e-mail at xxxzoology55@yahoo.com for additional information.
What does the Confederate Battle Flag represent? It depends on whose lens we look through.
African Americans view it as a symbol of racism, and oppression. Why? The Southern Battle Flag is a reminder of the antebellum period in which blacks were exploited, oppressed and murdered by the planter class. All black people were treated as property to be sold, dehumanized for the benefit the Southern aristocracy.
But Southern whites view it as a symbol of an era that provided them with power over blacks in which enrich themselves off black labor. The Civil War, or as most southerns call it the “War of Yankee Aggression”, ended that era and culture.
Some critics argue that the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had appropriated and misused the symbol to advocate racism. But, the movie “Birth of A Nation” that many claims was the greatest movie every produced portrayed the Klan as heroes saving the South-land from carpetbaggers and uppity blacks.
Where do we go from here? Maybe,those that support the symbol can find private spaces to bring reverence to what they view as a symbol representing their culture and pride.
The Southern Battle flag should not be flown in public spaces such as parks, government bulidings, or schools which is supported with taxpayer dollars
The young people involved in the “Black Lives Matter” could ultimately influence 2016 presidential politics. Growing after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the movement could be instrumental in selecting the next president. Florida, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin are key states in the 2016 election, and the issues of police violence has galvanized young people to organize.
Police violence have became issues in key states that are important in selecting the president. African Americans composed 20 percent of population in Missouri, and will be very motivated to vote in 2016 national elections. The highly restrictive voter suppression law in North Carolina, also, has been a flash point encouraging young people to get involved in electoral politics. In Ohio, the Tamir Rice case, and the Tony Robinson shooting caused African students to march by the thousands to protest shooting of unarmed black men by police.
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