By William “Meatball” Douthard
The Summer of 1963 was very hot in the South, especially Gadsden, a northern Alabama city of 75,000 of which 28-30,000 are Negroes. It was there that local and state law enforcement officers waged their most vicious and brutal assault upon negroes protesting the inaccessibility of public facilities, voting rights and public […]
I first mentioned William Douthard in passing here. At the right is a flier from a civil rights rally I think my father organized, where William spoke (click on the image to enlarge).
William Douthard was a student demonstration leader in Birmingham, Alabama, which was where he and my father met. To many in the […]
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
I mentioned in part III of this series that I can date the handwritten drafts of Long Days Short Nights because of a passage about Frankie Newton. I am posting that passage here, though it was not intended for publication. It is an unpolished prose sketch, written in one shot, to get the material down […]
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Dad had a number of stories like this one, lessons in being on the outside. The most developed one, and the most fully fictionalized, is “Lonesome Blues” , the story I posted in September, named after the song by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Fives . In “Lonesome Blues,” the high school years of a suicide jazz musician, Mo Bartel, closely mirror my father’s.
Also filed in Books, Paul Greenberg 101, civil rights movement, family, frankie newton, hungry blues, jazz, jewish, labor movement, long days short nights ms., nyc politics, old left/new left, race and racism, writings of PG
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
I wondered if Dan Morgenstern could help me find out more about Frankie Newton. A little googling revealed that Morgenstern is the director of the Institute of Jazz Studies , housed not at Princeton but at Rutgers. I sent him a letter on September 7, 1999. More than a month went by. I’d just about given up all hope of receiving a reply when in mid-October an envelope arrived in the mail with “Institute of Jazz Studies” in the return address. A letter from Morgenstern!
My father graduated from the eighth grade of Public School 89, Elmhurst, NY (Queens), in June of 1941. Like other kids graduating PS 89, he planned to go on to high school about a half mile away, at Newtown High School. According to his 8th grade autograph book, my father’s favorite author was Jack London, his favorite book The Sea Wolf ; Stardust was his favorite song; he loved baseball and worshipped Mel Ott.
Monday, September 27, 2004
[final draft from Long Days Short Nights ms., summer or fall, 1963]
by Paul A. Greenberg
Thursday, September 2, 2004
Maybe it was 1937 when my oldest brother and I were in a local WPA theater production of Waiting For Lefty. I remember thinking that a union organizer was the noblest of all jobs even better than playing right field like Mel Ott. I also thought that Jewishsocialist was one word and that Jews who were not socialists were the exceptions even though my mother’s family was among the exceptions.
We were a decidedly secular family. Judaism was some old fashioned thing that my paternal grandmother held onto and it was sort of embarrassing. I did love seders at my Aunt Beck’s house because my Uncle Sam made Exodus come alive. To me Moses was a union organizer and socialist revolutionary and John L. Lewis all rolled into one.
Also filed in Paul Greenberg 101, alabama, civil rights movement, disarmament, family, frankie newton, hungry blues, jazz, labor movement, liberal party of new york, nyc politics, old left/new left, proportional representation, writings of PG
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An estimated 20,000—colored and white—brought their own bridge chairs, camp chairs and backyard chairs in what was tagged locally, “Seats for Freedom.” Those without chairs rented them on the grounds for 25c. Or brought pillows. Or squatted on the grass. . . .
An additional 45-minute delay was caused by the late arrival of Ray Charles. His bus couldn’t proceed to the stage because opening the gate would have meant thousands could pour in helter skelter. Near mayhem was averted by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King who quickly stepped forward toward the helmeted policemen on duty, he formed a human chain to stem the onrush. It wasn’t needed. His presence was enough.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Aug. 6 (UPI)—An integrated rally, to raise money to send Negroes to Washington for a massive integration march, ended abruptly last night when the makeshift stage partly collapsed.
The Ray Charles moment in the blogosphere has mostly come and gone, but this blog dwells a little more in the past than most, so before I get back to other things I’ve got to do a little bit about Ray Charles.
Name: ROOSEVELT TATUM
Race: Negro
Sex: Male
Address: 1109 Avenue J, Ensley, Birmingham, Alabama
Date of Birth: February 18, 1924
Paul Greenberg
Born Brooklyn, New York December 22, 1927
Married, three children
New York City Public Schools
Columbia University School of General Studies 1953-6
United States Army honorable discharge June, 1952
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