97.9 The Hill WCHL and Chapelboro.com are your headquarters for local news and local voices in Chapel Hill-Carrboro. Every weekday morning, 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck chats with government officials, UNC scholars, business and nonprofit leaders, area musicians, and others in our community as they share their thoughts, their experience, and their expertise on the central issues of today. Click here to listen back to all of Aaron’s conversations – and tune in to “This Morning with Aaron Keck” at 7:30 a.m. on 97.9 The Hill to hear those conversations live.
Aaron chats with NC State professor Jason Miller, who’s speaking next week at Flyleaf Books about the famed poet Langston Hughes. Hughes spent much of life raising awareness of lynchings in America – and in 1931 he came to Chapel Hill and debuted his poem “Christ in Alabama,” a response to the infamous Scottsboro Boys case. (For good measure, he also defied the color line and ate at a segregated restaurant.) Celebrated today, the poem was initially highly controversial – and remained so for decades, spurring then-UNC president Frank Porter Graham to stand up for free expression and even affecting the debate over the Speaker Ban law more than 30 years later.
Click here for more details about Miller’s talk, which is free and open to the public.
Miller’s talk will take place Tuesday, September 19, at 6:30 p.m. in the Chapel Hill Public Library, co-hosted by Carolina Public Humanities and the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition. There will also be readings by Nick Courmon and state poet laureate Jaki Shelton Green.
Listen to Aaron’s conversation with Jason Miller and Carolina Public Humanities director Lloyd Kramer:
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