Feb 27, 2011

Feb. 24, 1936 started off partly cloudy and slightly warmer than the day before. The Great Depression still loomed, but if you were a female and “attractive,” you could be a curb girl at Frank’s Barbecue in Norfolk. You could buy a Model A Ford in “running condition” for $35 and Golden Edge Straight Whisky, 100 proof, for 70 cents a pint.

A legal ad in the paper announced that the city was allowing Virginia Electric Power Co. to abandon its streetcar service, provided that it remove the tracks and repave the streets. The paper also began a fund drive to help the Union of Kings Daughters keep open a financially strapped nursery for needy children.
Photo of the Colley Theater in 1936, the year it opened. Next door is an A&P grocery and upstairs a beauty salon. Courtesy of the Naro Theater (Click to enlarge).

And at the Colley Theater in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood, an American Legion drum and bugle corps from Portsmouth performed and bouquets of flowers were strewn at the entrance. Radio station WTAR carried the event live. Vaudeville performer Lee J. Greenwood served as master of ceremonies, and hundreds of customers streamed into the new art deco theater.

At 8:36 or thereabouts, a projectionist flipped a switch and the first frames of a movie version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Dick Powell, began flickering across the screen at 24 frames per second.

It was the first of thousands of movies that have, really, made up the history of what is now the Naro Theater, a neighborhood institution that celebrated its 75th anniversary this past Thursday.

Fittingly, the Naro featured a hit film from that year, Charlie Chaplain’s “Modern Times”, written, directed and scored by the actor. It was considered the last of Chaplain’s silent films, although there was plenty of sound, including a nonsense Italian-French song he appeared to adlib when his shirt cuff – on which the words were written – flew off. Paulette Goddard played a waif who sticks by him through tough times.

The theater also showed a video of its history with slides of famous stars that have graced its screen, including James Dean, Bing Crosby, Humphrey Bogart, Jackie Gleason, Paul Newman, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland and a dozen or so others. Part of the background soundtrack is the 1970s song “Widescreen.”

The Colley was the brain child of a consummate showman and entrepreneur, William S. Wilder, who built or bought about half a dozen theaters in the area, including Portsmouth’s Commodore. He produced and promoted vaudeville shows, some of which he brought to Norfolk’s Center Theater – now Harrison Opera House.

When he died in 1946, his movie business was continued by his wife, Myde Wilder. In the 1960s the Colley changed hands and the new owner, Robert Levine, renamed it the Naro after his father, Nathan, and his mother, Rose. He owned or operated a number of single-screen suburban theaters, including the Riverview on upper Granby St., the Rosele in Ocean View and the extravagant Memrose that was torn down in the 70s for the expansion of Norfolk Sentara Hospital.

The Naro had a brief life in the 1970s as a playhouse, the Actor’s Theater, with live stage productions.

In the fall of 1977, the Naro’s lease was taken over by two homegrown friends, Tench Phillips and Thom Vourlas, who lived down the street from the theater and hoped to showcase some of the foreign, art and independent films that had been missing from local screens. The company, Art Repertory Films, in competition with big theater chains, thrived in what the owners call the Golden Age for specialty cinema, the next two decades.

The Naro was adopted by Ghent residents as a favorite gathering place, and when the theater was hard pressed 10 years ago by the need to renovate, rose up and – in the spirit of Clarence, the guardian angel of the perennial favorite “It’s a Wonderful Life,” came up with the cash to help buy new seats, fix the roof and modernize the projection booth.

Now the partners are getting ready to negotiate a new 10-year lease, and hope to carry out further improvements. Although most movie theaters are gradually making the switch to digital projectors, they plan to keep the old 35 mm machines for those special occasions when revivals are held.

As both of them say, almost every day they cause cellulose images to flash across the screen, who knew they’d be at it this long?

Feb. 20, 2011

I’ve been thinking about revolution. Who would not after witnessing the dizzying events of recent weeks in Egypt and just about every country in the Middle East?

It was America, after all, where the idea of throwing off a repressive government, one that trampled on the rights of individuals, was born. When people around the world cry out for justice and freedom, where they demand democracy, are they not seeking life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

The painting by Julius Stearns shows George Washington overseeing slaves harvesting grain on his plantation at Mt. Vernon. Library of Congress. (click to enlarge.)

This country, this last best hope of the earth, as Lincoln put it, is where this powder keg was created.

Mr. Jefferson lighted a candle in the dark when he dared to proclaim that all men are created equal. But he also, inadvertently, planted the seeds of civil war. He and his co-conspirators, Washington, Madison and those other slaveholding, radical Virginians.

It’s no accident that Colonial Williamsburg – you know, the folks with knee breeches and hoop skirts – held a conference this weekend called Storm on the Horizon: Slavery, Disunion and the Roots of the Civil War. Black actors portraying colonial era slaves spoke of the paradox of being owned and forced to labor by masters who gave lip service to the idea of individual freedom.

“As much as they wanted in their hearts to move away from slavery, it was impossible for them to conceive of it financially, ”one of the actors, Richard Josey, who grew up in Williamsburg, told me.

The seeds of disunion were planted by the revolution. Before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, slavery was prevalent throughout the colonies. It was just as common for factory owners in New England and bankers in New York to have kitchen slaves as it was for plantation owners in Virginia to have field hands.

But almost immediately after the war, northern states one after another began banning slavery. The idea of human bondage was abhorrent to those espousing liberty. And it looked as though Virginia would soon join the rush toward abolition. As Gordon S. Wood, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and history professor at Brown University, points out, Virginia had more abolition societies than all of the northern states combined.

Unlike the Deep South, where slaves toiled almost exclusively in rice and cotton fields, Virginia had more slaves than it knew what to do with. Many were hired out to work for wages as carpenters, dock workers and even boat captains. Many used their earnings to buy their freedom. Whites and blacks mingled in taverns and the work place, and worshipped in the same churches.

It was only a matter of time before the institution of slavery would collapse, many thought. George Washington, who promised that after Martha’s death, his slaves would be freed, believed it would happen in due course.

But Wood, who spoke yesterday in Williamsburg, described how a chasm between the North and the South began to widen after the war. Spurning slavery, the North turned into maybe the most commercialized society the world had ever known, one that celebrated labor as none had before.

At the same time, the South celebrated, well not exactly sloth, but sitting back and letting someone else work for you. It’s true that not everyone in the South owned slaves. Many whites planted and picked their own cotton. But the idea that they might make enough money to buy someone to work for them was almost universal, Wood told me in a phone interview last week.

“These two societies were going to clash,” he said, “and I think the threat posed by Lincoln’s election was very scary to the southerners.”

Lincoln, who was very much in tune with Jefferson’s thoughts, used the revolution as justification for promising to ban slavery in the west and, ultimately, for writing the Emancipation Proclamation.

But freedom, as Richard Josey’s slave character points out, wasn’t the same thing as equality. That would not be decided until another revolution came along.
When young people, assembling peaceably in massive numbers, demonstrating, marching, enduring the violence of tear gas, bullets, club-wielding thugs and heavy handed cops, refused to give up until their demands were met.

Sound familiar?

Feb 13, 2011

The hall of Mechanics’ Institute in Richmond, the largest available venue in the city, was jammed. Delegates from around a state that then included Appalachian counties to the west assembled. Public galleries, one for women, one for men. were packed.

There was a hum of excitement, but also an air of dread as, 150 years ago today, delegates to the Virginia State Convention gathered to consider whether or not to break away from the United States of America.

At first, there was every reason to believe they would not.

John Janney, a pro-Unionist Quaker from Loudoun County, was elected president of the convention and set the tone when he said on opening day that the consequences of their action “may be full of good or full of evil.”

There was hearty applause when he added, "I hope and trust that the result of our labors may redound to the good of the State and of the Union."

If you’re a history buff – with maybe an iron tailbone – you can read all about this extraordinary gathering in a mind-numbing – about 3200 pages – but still fascinating four-volume tome: Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention, in the history collection at the Norfolk Public Library.

It’s not exactly “Gone with the Wind,” but there is drama here, Scarlett, and treachery.

Both delegates from Norfolk County – which then included Portsmouth – and one from Norfolk City opposed secession. Much of the region’s prosperity depended on commerce with the North. They were mostly silent during the debates, but Princess Anne’s representative was another story.

From almost the moment he arrived, a few days late, gaunt, vain, mercurial former Gov. Henry A. Wise was a force to be reckoned with, provoking laughter, applause and, ultimately, disbelief among pro-Union delegates. In his first speech, he warned that if anything met with his disapproval “I shall demand the right, I shall demand the power, of objection…This is not the hour to submit to one inch of arbitrary power [LOUD APPLAUSE].”

From the outset of the convention, it was clear that Virginia, the largest and most prestigious southern state, held the fate of the Union in its hands. All of the border states, including North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, waited to see which way it would go. If Virginia held with the Union, there might be little more than a brief rebellion and then peace.

Other heavy hitters at the gathering included former President John Tyler of Charles City County, who had chaired a last-ditch. crashingly unsuccessful, Peace Conference in Washington; and Jubal Early, a contentious former army officer from Franklin County. Early, who would later serve as a Confederate general, warned that secession would be “a great crime…perpetrated against the cause of liberty and civilization.” The convention droned on with neck-snapping verbosity for three weeks, with some speeches lasting entire days. But there was intrigue, too. Henry Wise was accused of conspiring to stage an armed invasion of Washington (!), a charge he denounced as slander. But judging from what would come later, that wouldn’t be far-fetched.

At any rate, he and the other radicals called for a vote and on April 4 were soundly whipped. The first secession attempt was defeated 90 to 45.

But that was to change only eight days later. On April 12, Confederate batteries in Charleston opened fire on Fort Sumter, forcing the evacuation of federal forces. Though no one was killed, the country was suddenly at war.

Still desperate for peace, the convention on April 15 sent a three-member delegation to meet with Lincoln. He was curt with them, and no wonder. He was about to call up 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion, including recruits from still-loyal border states.

That did it. White southerners against white southerners? The delegates to the convention – still in session – stampeded to the secessionist side.

But Wise was taking no chances. Because the reluctant governor, John Letcher, had balked at acting, he and co-conspirators the night before sent a telegram to have militia companies in the western part of the state storm the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.

Brandishing a revolver before the delegates, Wise predicted that “blood will be flowing at Harper’s Ferry before night.”

No more foolish debates, he told them. The only result “must be delay and, perhaps, ruin.”

Wise called for the vote and this time it was 88 to 55 in favor of secession. When voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum on May 23, Virginia joined the Confederate States of America.


Photo. Former Virginia Gov. Henry A. Wise owned a plantation in Princess Anne County known as Rolleston. It was seized by the federal government and used as a training camp for former slaves. Library of Congress.

Feb. 6, 2011

You walk into a three-sided display and suddenly feel you’re in the midst of Confederate soldiers charging a Union position. All around you is chaos: men yelling, guns firing, bodies falling. “Help me! Help me!” a wounded man cries.

Aided by photographs. computer-generated effects that create the illusion of movement and surround-sound technology, you are there. You are experiencing a Civil
War battle – in this case one that was fought in the Shenandoah Valley – in all its blood and gore.

Or you assume the identity of a slave attempting to escape in the middle of the night and find your way to Union lines. You take a small amount of food to tide you over – it could be several days – and leave after dark, making sure the moonlight doesn’t betray you.

You stop to speak to another slave who looks you in the eye.

“There’s all sorts of rumors about Union soldiers near here,” he tells you. “I heard you’d find ‘em if you go to the crossroads by the mill and head east. Others say there’s some not far from where you cross the Pamunkey River. Now git before you get us both in trouble.”

These are two of the most elaborate elements of an ambitious exhibit that opened Friday at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Called “An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia,” it sprawls over 3,000 square feet in the Society’s neoclassical headquarters in downtown and features more than 200 objects and 17 state-of-the art audiovisual programs.

Combined with another offering at the Library of Virginia, “Union or Secession, Virginians Decide,” it’s Virginia’s best opening shot, as it were, in observing the 150th anniversary of the long and bloody war that changed the face and character of America, maybe for all time.

Virginia, largest and most prosperous state in the South and mother lode of Revolutionary War patriots, was considered the tipping point of the Civil War. Much of the middle South watched as this state debated joining the Confederacy, and much of the nation waited with baited breath. “All depends upon the action of Virginia,” said Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois. “Save Virginia, and we will save the Union.”

But they didn’t, of course, and close to 50,000 Virginians lost life or limb during four years of war. Because of its proximity to Washington, the state endured more than 2000 battles.

There’s an elaborate display of the major battles, but the Historical Society’s exhibit focuses mostly on individuals who fought in the war or who were affected by it. Among them are Siah Carter, an escaped slave from Shirley Plantation who rowed out to the ironclad Monitor while it lay at anchor in the James River and was taken on as first assistant to the ship’s cook and later survived its loss at sea.

Another was Alexander Augusta of Norfolk who earned his medical degree in Canada and, while practicing in Washington, was appointed surgeon of the 7th U.S. Colored Troops. At war’s end, he was brevetted lieutenant colonel for meritorious service, becoming the highest-ranking African American in the military.

For those who are text-savvy, there’s a display about how its distant relative, the telegraph, worked. It challenges visitors to key a message into their cell phones faster than the telegrapher, who often – just like counterparts today – abbreviated many words and phrases.

The exhibition runs through the end of the year, then goes on the road to locations throughout the state. One stop early next year will be the Hampton History Museum.
In the meantime, if we’re not up for a drive to Richmond just yet, the website www.vahistorical.org has a fast-moving video on the lead-up to the war.

Photo. Pvt. Henry Bird of Petersburg took the oath of allegiance to the United States so he could marry. He penned a note of apology to his fiancée, Margaret Randolph. “My darling, we are all strangers to the land now.” Virginia Historical Society.