WILMINGTON–Living history interpreters will participate in demonstrations Friday, May 2, through Sunday, May 4, that show the life of the Battleship North Carolina crew during World War II. Visitors will be able to view living history demonstrations and activities Friday, May 2, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, May 3 from 1-5 p.m.; and Sunday, May 4, from 8 a.m. to noon. (more…)

But the request opened the floodgates.

More than 2,600 prints and slides poured in from veterans and family members within five months. Tucker, a photojournalist and teacher, felt something greater at hand. He envisioned an exhibit for — and by — Vietnam veterans. By November 2004, the exhibit became a reality, and A Thousand Words: Photographs by Vietnam Veterans began a national tour. On Thursday, May 1, the traveling exhibit will open at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Admission is free, and the exhibit will run until Nov. 17, 2008.

“A Thousand Words is a very personal look at what the soldiers experienced and how they chose to document it,” explains Martin. Each of the 60 compelling images selected for the exhibit has a description from the veteran who took the photograph. Topics include camaraderie, jungle combat, the Vietnamese people, and a soldier’s private moments.

Martin says an important, unforeseen benefit emerged as the exhibit progressed. Through the photographs, the veterans found a way to express what they could not say. Silences about the war were broken between husbands and wives, family members and others.

“Photographs weren’t just dropped off at my office,” he states. “The men wanted to talk. Three decades later, their experiences remained fresh and often just below the surface.”

After selecting the images for A Thousand Words, Martin and his team of volunteers and students invited the veterans back to tape interviews about the photographs. Their gripping words range from the anguish of fighting near the Cambodian border to enjoying a 1966 Bob Hope Christmas show or finally taking a field “shower” in a rice paddy in 100-degree weather.

For example, army veteran Joe Idol recalled wartime anxiety when describing his photograph of a soldier in a Cambodian jungle. “We were never off duty. Being in a war zone, you got to understand, there are different ways to get killed during the different periods of the day.” Others soldiers described calmer scenes, such as a Vietnamese farmer riding on a water buffalo or people washing clothes in a river.

More than 206,000 men and women from North Carolina served in Vietnam. In the 1950s, the first American troops arrived in Vietnam as military advisers to the South Vietnam government. By 1965 American combat forces began arriving in large numbers, and the conflict became primarily an American war. By the time our troops withdrew in 1975, more than 58,000 Americans had died.

Don’t miss A Thousand Words, a profound tribute to the men and women from the Piedmont Triad who served our country. For creating and curating the exhibit, Tucker received the Distinguished Service Award, the highest civilian award from the Military Order of the Purple Heart Association. Tucker, a Vietnam-era veteran who served in the U.S. Navy, currently teaches photography at a private school and runs a photography studio in Winston-Salem.

FREE PROGRAM

Curator’s Tour: A Thousand Words: Photographs by Vietnam Veterans

Saturday, May 17

1:30 p.m.

Join Martin Tucker for a poignant perspective of the Vietnam War through the lenses of soldiers who experienced it.

For more information, call 919-807-7900 or visit ncmuseumofhistory.org.

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The N.C. Museum of History’s hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The museum is part of the Division of State History Museums, Office of Archives and History, an agency of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. The department’s Web site is www.ncculture.com.

DURHAM—Relive the April 26, 1865 Confederate surrender at Bennett Place in Durham – the largest of the Civil War – on Saturday, April 26 and Sunday, April 27, at Bennett Place State Historic Site.  The program, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, will include a colorful reenactment of the how the Union and Confederate generals negotiated the surrender terms, a candlelight tour of the former Bennett family farm, the southern soldiers’ surrender to northern troops, a solemn wreath-laying ceremony, Union and Confederate soldier encampments and more.  The program is free and open to the public.

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Zebulon Vance as a young man 

WEAVERVILLE—Western North Carolina’s unique dance, music and arts traditions will be highlighted at Vance Birthplace State Historic Site in Weaverville this spring and early summer.  Held on successive Saturdays at 1 p.m., this series of living history events will include an old-time “frolic” on Saturday, May 17, at 5 p.m. to mark the birthday of Zebulon Vance, 19th century North Carolina political leader, Confederate general, U.S. congressman and governor.  All these living history programs are free and open to the public.

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On Friday, April 11, the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh will open Cherokee Pottery: People of One Fire, a traveling exhibit inspired by a partnership between artists from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina and the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. These potters look to traditional building, design and firing techniques for new creative interpretations. On view will be more than 80 objects that illustrate centuries of continuity and change in Cherokee pottery forms, designs and techniques. The exhibit will run through July 27, and admission is free.

“This is the first time a collection of pottery from all three federally recognized Cherokee tribal entities has been together for public viewing,” says Mickel Yantz, museum curator of Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah, Okla. The exhibit is a collaboration among the Cherokee Heritage Center and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee Potters Guild, Research Laboratories of Archaeology at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Western Carolina University in North Carolina.

In addition to Queen, the exhibit features works by Elizabeth Bigmeat Smart, Amanda Swimmer and other members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Many scholars uphold that the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has the longest continuing pottery tradition of any tribe in its original homeland in the United States. As are the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is federally recognized.

Pottery continues to be a vibrant part of Cherokee culture, despite centuries of dramatic changes. Enforcement of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 resulted in the rounding up and removal of thousands of Cherokee in the Southeast to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. This “Trail of Tears” wrenched apart families and geographically severed the majority of the tribe from its homeland. 

Visitors to Cherokee Pottery: People of One Fire will observe how potters in North Carolina and Oklahoma are reconnecting their common cultural heritage by sharing pottery techniques derived from ancient tradition. Among the methods is the stamping technique, which involves pressing carved wooden paddles onto the unfired surface of a clay vessel to impress designs.

Works by master potters from the Cherokee Nation, such as Bill Glass Jr. and Jane Osti, feature traditional techniques with new interpretations. Osti, who has been honored as a Living Treasure of the Cherokee Nation, states, “Cherokee pottery is our greatest history, of how, where and when we lived before written time.”

Plan now to see this compelling exhibit of visually stunning and culturally significant pottery. Cherokee Pottery: People of One Fire was made possible with funding from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. The exhibit is located in the museum’s permanent gallery Pleasing to the Eye: The Decorative Arts of North Carolina.

For more information about the museum, call 919-807-7900 or access ncmuseumofhistory.org.

STATESVILLE - Join thousands of other visitors at Ft. Dobbs State Historic Site Saturday, April 19, and Sunday, April 20, to hear cannons roar and muskets thunder as soldiers, Indians and civilians recall the 1754-1763 French and Indian War.  The fourth annual “War for Empire” program will recall the epic struggle between England and France for control of North America.  Scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, the event will feature “battle” between period-costumed North Carolina provincial soldiers and French and their Cherokee allies, which was fought in 1758.  The reenactment will be presented at 1:30 p.m. each day.  Admission to all events is free. 

Young and old alike will have a chance to immerse themselves in colony life of 250 years ago, when America—and North Carolina—was gripped by war.   Visitors can inspect the artillery Britain used against the fortresses of New France and learn about the men who led North Carolina’s provincial soldiers through these tumultuous times.  Historical interpreters will recreate the American Indian war councils of the Cherokee as they decide whether to support the British campaign of 1758.  

Other highlights will include “wagoneers” describing military transportation in the campaign of 1758, using an original 18th-century Conestoga wagon.  Visit with the ordinary settlers who endured the hardships of a colony at war but whose spirit endured.  Period music will fill the air as children enjoy 18th century games and pastimes.  Walk through the market faire or join in a typical divine service at 11 a.m. Sunday.  On-going presentations will include military drills, military and civilian camps, blacksmithing, 18th century medical care, Cherokee camps, old-fashioned cooking and dishes typically eaten by the colonists, a hunters camp, artillery demonstrations, sutlers (peddlers who sold supplies to soldiers) hawking period wares and much more!

On Saturday at 3 p.m., guest lecturer Dr. David Dixon of Slippery Rock College will also present a talk on the 1758 Forbes campaign, an attack by British forces on the French stronghold Ft. Dusquene at what is now Pittsburgh.  Today, historians mark 1758 as the year the French and Indian War turned in favor of the British Crown.  

The role of Ft. Dobbs and North Carolina in the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the first true world war, makes up an important chapter in North Carolina’s colonial history.  Built in 1756, the fort was named for Royal Governor Arthur Dobbs and manned by provincial soldiers.  It was garrisoned from 1756-1761, sheltering frontier settlers during the war and serving as the colony’s western frontier company headquarters.  The fort was attacked February 27, 1760, when soldiers fought off more than 60 Cherokee.        

Ft. Dobbs’ mission is to preserve and interpret the history of North Carolina’s only French and Indian War fort and is open Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., offering living history programs daily.  It is part of the Division of N.C. Historic Sites and Properties within the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history, and culture.  For more information on Ft. Dobbs, visit www.fortdobbs.org or call 704/873-5882, email info@fortdobbs.org.

This program reflects the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources 2008 theme “Telling Our Stories,” a yearlong celebration that showcases the story of North Carolina’s rich arts, heritage, and cultural life. For more information on Cultural Resources programs, visit www.ncculture.com.