Oral history interview with Paul Green, May 30, 1975 [electronic resource] : interview B-0005-3, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
Pulitzer prize-winning playwright and activist Paul Green--most famous for his symphonic drama The Lost Colony--spent his youth at the turn of the twentieth century in rural Harnett County, North Carolina. There, he began to gather material on the stories of poverty, struggle, and race that would define his life as an artist and an activist. He discusses both art and activism in this interview, describing how regional and social context shaped his work, remembering overwrought stage actors who struggled to bring life to his salt-of-the-earth characters, and activists who seemed to thrive on the misery they sought to banish. These artists, distant from their subjects, share something with the intellectuals who were more devoted to their ideologies than to realizing their beliefs through pragmatic application of them, Green believes. Green, on the other hand, defined himself as an activist through direct action. In this interview, he remembers a number of cases of injustice in which he tried to intervene, including the case of a black teenager sentenced to death for rape; an instance of horrific cruelty at a prison camp; tobacco workers and janitors struggling with substandard wages; and the case of a fugitive communist organizer. Green's efforts, and the collective action he sought to inspire, met limited success, a fact reflected in some of Green's plays, in which poor folk struggle in vain against their ill fortune. This struggle--its motivations, its successes, its failures--is at the heart of this interview, which will interest scholars of drama and history alike.
Electronic resources
Record details
- Physical Description: 1 online resource
- Edition: Electronic edition
- Publisher: [Chapel Hill, N.C.] : University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2008.
Content descriptions
- General Note:
- Duration: 02:49:34.Interview participants: Paul Green, interviewee; Jacquelyn Hall, interviewer.Text encoded by Kristin Shaffer. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.Title from menu page (viewed on Oct. 31, 2008).
- Type of Computer File or Data Note:
- Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 220 kilobytes, 310 megabytes.
- Original Version Note:
- Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series B, Individual biographies, interview B-0005-3, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Joe Jaros. Original transcript: 65 p.
- Funding Information Note:
- Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.
- System Details Note:
- Mode of access: World Wide Web.System requirements: Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.
Search for related items by subject
- Subject:
- Green, Paul, 1894-1981 > Interviews.
American drama.
Art and social action > North Carolina.
Dramatists, American > Political and social views.
Dramatists, American > North Carolina > Interviews.
Political activists > North Carolina > Interviews.
Politics in literature.
Social movements > North Carolina.
Social reformers > North Carolina > Interviews.
