History's highways
I've been traveling for a few days -- off to Greensboro, N.C., for some training at a much larger sister newspaper. All went well. Stayed in a cozy downtown hotel with hardwood floors and tall ceilings. They encourage you to have a glass of wine with them in the parlor-like lobby (no extra charge), and will happily send you up to your room with a glass if you cannot linger. (It's the Greensboro Biltmore Hotel on Washington Street, if you are wondering.)
I also enjoyed their elevators -- the old fashioned kind that you have to open the doors to yourself. As a child, I rode these to my grandmother's New York City apartment and was petrified of them. You can watch the floors go by from inside the mesh gate and the contraption has the same smell I remember -- of oil and dust, even though it was well maintained.
It was my second trip to Greensboro in a couple of weeks. I sometimes think of I-40 as my life's highway because I've traveled so much of it so often. I worked in Wilmington, N.C., on one end of the highway, and near Flagstaff, Ariz., on the other end. I have traveled it on into California, but just barely.
Mileposts are also memory posts for me. The exit at Black Mountain reminds me of meeting an old friend there after a writing conference and seeing the Nashville Misfits at a little music hall.
Canton is where I stopped once to get gas and realized I'd left my wallet several hours drive away. Had a call a friend from a place only a couple of hours away to come bail me out with gas money.
Hickory is where one of my colleagues at The Evansville Courier landed. The business writer had landed a job at one of the furniture trade magazines. I remember the excitement on his face when he confided in me that he had an interview, although I have forgotten his name.
Major history lies along this roadway, as well. I pass Yadkin Valley, once the home of Daniel Boone. Asheville, the hometown and subject of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. Greensboro is a major civil rights site. The Greensboro Four fanned the flames of the civil rights movement when they bellied up to the whites-only side of a segregated lunch counter a lunch counter at the F.W. Woolworth's there on Feb. 1, 1960. One of the streets by the Woolworth's has been renamed February One and efforts are underway to turn the store into a museum.
Closer to home, just off of I-40, is another little-known piece of social justice history. At the Deep Springs exit in Dandridge is a 160-acre place called the Highland Research and Education Center. Many years ago, when it was known as the Highlander Folk School and was in Monteagle, Tenn., it was where founder Myles Horton helped empower the likes of Martin Luther King and Rosa Park. He also crossed paths with Ella Baker, founder of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee that launched its efforts nonviolent change at the F.W. Woolworth's in Greensboro.
The Highlander Center keeps a low profile. My parents live a few miles the other way on the same Deeps Springs exit and have never heard of the place. I only know it is there because 20 years ago, as a fledgling journalist, I went there with a group of people who were fighting pollution from tannery that was befouling Yellow Creek in Bell County, Ky.
Further west just off of I-40, perched on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, is a tiny community called Ozone. It is there where Myles Horton developed his taste for helping the downtrodden and righting the wronged when, as a college student, he directed a Presbyterian Bible School in the community.
Residents who had sold their mineral and logging rights to industrialists for a fraction of their value had seen the resources depleted and were looking for answers on what next. Horton did not have the answers, but once the people came together to ask those questions, they began answering them for themselves. It was a lesson Horton never forgot. It launched his efforts, which eventually resulted in the Highlander, which -- noticed or not -- continues its work today.
I also enjoyed their elevators -- the old fashioned kind that you have to open the doors to yourself. As a child, I rode these to my grandmother's New York City apartment and was petrified of them. You can watch the floors go by from inside the mesh gate and the contraption has the same smell I remember -- of oil and dust, even though it was well maintained.
It was my second trip to Greensboro in a couple of weeks. I sometimes think of I-40 as my life's highway because I've traveled so much of it so often. I worked in Wilmington, N.C., on one end of the highway, and near Flagstaff, Ariz., on the other end. I have traveled it on into California, but just barely.
Mileposts are also memory posts for me. The exit at Black Mountain reminds me of meeting an old friend there after a writing conference and seeing the Nashville Misfits at a little music hall.
Canton is where I stopped once to get gas and realized I'd left my wallet several hours drive away. Had a call a friend from a place only a couple of hours away to come bail me out with gas money.
Hickory is where one of my colleagues at The Evansville Courier landed. The business writer had landed a job at one of the furniture trade magazines. I remember the excitement on his face when he confided in me that he had an interview, although I have forgotten his name.
Major history lies along this roadway, as well. I pass Yadkin Valley, once the home of Daniel Boone. Asheville, the hometown and subject of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. Greensboro is a major civil rights site. The Greensboro Four fanned the flames of the civil rights movement when they bellied up to the whites-only side of a segregated lunch counter a lunch counter at the F.W. Woolworth's there on Feb. 1, 1960. One of the streets by the Woolworth's has been renamed February One and efforts are underway to turn the store into a museum.
Closer to home, just off of I-40, is another little-known piece of social justice history. At the Deep Springs exit in Dandridge is a 160-acre place called the Highland Research and Education Center. Many years ago, when it was known as the Highlander Folk School and was in Monteagle, Tenn., it was where founder Myles Horton helped empower the likes of Martin Luther King and Rosa Park. He also crossed paths with Ella Baker, founder of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee that launched its efforts nonviolent change at the F.W. Woolworth's in Greensboro.
The Highlander Center keeps a low profile. My parents live a few miles the other way on the same Deeps Springs exit and have never heard of the place. I only know it is there because 20 years ago, as a fledgling journalist, I went there with a group of people who were fighting pollution from tannery that was befouling Yellow Creek in Bell County, Ky.
Further west just off of I-40, perched on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, is a tiny community called Ozone. It is there where Myles Horton developed his taste for helping the downtrodden and righting the wronged when, as a college student, he directed a Presbyterian Bible School in the community.
Residents who had sold their mineral and logging rights to industrialists for a fraction of their value had seen the resources depleted and were looking for answers on what next. Horton did not have the answers, but once the people came together to ask those questions, they began answering them for themselves. It was a lesson Horton never forgot. It launched his efforts, which eventually resulted in the Highlander, which -- noticed or not -- continues its work today.
posted by Mountain Laureate at 4:58 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home