Chansky’s Notebook: The Carolina Anthem

Wonderfully, JT was back on the UNC athletic fields.

When President Obama came to Chapel Hill to stump for Hillary Clinton, his 44-minute speech was preceded by one of our town’s favorite adopted sons, James Taylor, singing his signature Carolina In My Mind on a stage erected on the intramural fields next to Carmichael Arena. It reminded me of the first time I saw JT at UNC.

It was one of those fabulous Jubilee spring weeks when world-class entertainers performed for two days and nights. Taylor was just 22 when he returned to Chapel Hill to sing the song that has become a Tar Heel anthem, and he did it sitting on a stool on a makeshift stage at the 50-yard line of Kenan Stadium. In those days, the audience sat on the field so close to Taylor that he chatted with some of his old friends between songs.

He has performed at Carolina many times since, usually in Carmichael or the Smith Center, as well as amphitheaters and arenas and stadiums all over the state, country and world. He is Chapel Hill’s adopted son because he was actually born and raised in Massachu-setts, and Martha’s Vineyard, before his father, Ike Taylor, was named Dean of the UNC medical School and the family moved south.

His mother, Gertrude Taylor, got involved in the political campaign of Howard Lee, the former mayor of Chapel Hill and the first African American to hold such a position in the South since Reconstruction. Mrs. Taylor said she had seen so much racial prejudice in the Northeast that she HAD to support Lee in his historic campaign, which he won by 400 votes largely because his team of supporters managed to register the majority of 1200 blacks then living in Chapel Hill to vote for the first time.

James has been active in politics his entire life, often supporting minority candidates like Obama and Clinton, who today tries to become the first woman President of the United States. Thus, it was no surprise that Taylor, wearing his signature fedora over his now bald head, appeared on stage to serenade the massive crowd, most of whom weren’t born when JT made his first return to The Hill.