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PDY Chapel Hill News article from Sunday, June 12 Company for Silent Sam As I made my way from Franklin Street up onto the campus, I had to smile as always at good old Silent Sam, the statue erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy “to the sons of the University who entered the war of 1861-1865 in answer to the call of their country….” Never mind that old Sam has had no reason in recent years to fire off his gun to salute a virgin walking by; and, like so many latter day patriots, he never had anything to do with the cause he so nobly recalls. The statue itself was done by a sculptor in Boston. His model was a Boston policeman. They couldn’t find a Confederate uniform, so our Sam is actually depicted in full Union Army regalia. The only thing Southern about the thing is the granite base it sits on. Passing on by (without a shot) I came upon something new on this beautiful old greensward that remains the beloved centerpiece of UNC. It was a squat round black something with five surrounding pieces which recalled in miniature the ancient monuments like Stonehenge. As I got up closer to it, I had to admire the stark modern design—and the classic dignity of the polished black marble. Holding up the heavy round table were scores of bronzed male and female figures in work clothes. Like dozens of others I observed that day and later, I moved around the table top to read the inscription: “The Class of 2002 honors the University’s unsung founders the people of color bond and free who helped build the Carolina that we cherish today.” At last, I thought to myself, great God Almighty, at long last, a monument to those who actually did the work. I thought of the hundreds of workers who had dug the ditches, hauled the mortar, laid the bricks and stones that formed the very foundations of our great university. And then I thought of all the white guys who took all the credit. For example, we always hear that Prof. Elisha Mitchell “built” the low rock walls that are so much a part of the landscape now. Mitchell was known as a very athletic and hyper-active teacher, so he may well have lifted a few rocks. But, I’ll venture to say the walls themselves were built by his slaves. Yes, Elisha Mitchell, ordained Congregationalist minister, graduate of Yale, a Yankee for God’s sake, owned four and five slaves throughout his tenure at UNC. Not only that, he wrote tracts attacking Northern abolitionists and defending slavery based on the scriptures in the Holy Bible. Interestingly, he said the Bible was full of admonitions against rich people, but sanctioned human slavery in dozens of places. The brutal truth is that slavery endured because it worked. The economy of the South and to a large extent the rest of the country was built on free forced labor. And so was our great university, oasis of learning and enlightenment that it was in this Sahara of the Bozarts. After the Civil War, the University should have taken the lead in helping to uplift and improve the lot of the freed slaves. However, on too many occasions the University officials fell in line with the white supremacy movement that restored the Democratic Party to power in the elections of 1900 and 1902 and imposed a new kind of political slavery through the Jim Crow laws. One hopes that along with this monument and the success of the Sonja Haynes Center for Black Culture and History, the university will at long last begin to give credit where credit is due. I’ve done extensive research on Prof. Mitchell, for example, and I have never yet seen one of his slaves mentioned by name. It’s high time we named their names and included blacks in the important roles they played in all our history. I salute the class of 2002 for giving us this long overdue monument. If anything, I would wish that it were ten feet tall so nobody passing by could ignore it. However, maybe this is fitting. The African-Americans, after all, have given us a remarkable example of courage throughout our history by enduring our insults with quiet dignity. He shoulda been deep throat Damn! The 30-year-old secret of the identity of Woodward and Bernstein’s “Deep Throat” is finally revealed. It turns out it was Mark Felt, former number 2 man at the FBI, who was giving the Washington Post all those insider stories that brought down the Nixon administration. More important to me, Deep Throat is not who I thought it was. I had hoped against hope that it was Durham’s own David Gergen, graduate of Durham High School, editor of the school’s “Hi-Rocket” newspaper. My sister-in-law was the faculty adviser to Gergen’s paper. I was editor of the paper at Erwin High School up near Asheville. At a journalism conference at Winthrop College, David and I double-dated two teenaged girls who were almost as awkward and homely-looking as we were. I came to UNC; Gergen went off to Yale. I dropped out of UNC and went to work for UPI in New York and then Saigon. For several years, I lost track of Dave Gergen. But, on a visit back here with our old mutual friend, Jake Phelps, I was given the dreadful news. Jake hung his head in grief: Dave Gergen had turned Republican and was working at the very heart of the Nixon White House. The only explanation anybody could come up with was: “His wife is English.” Old friends and mere acquaintances wrung their hands and shook their heads in disbelief: how could this have happened to someone as nice as our Dave? Not long afterwards, I found myself sharing an apartment with an editor at the Washington Post, fairly close to the White House and the Watergate hotel and condominium complex. Needless to say, Gergen and I moved in very different circles and never saw each other… …Until long after Nixon had resigned and All the President’s Men had become a bestselling book and a major motion picture. Deep Throat was the mysterious hero of the book and the movie and for three decades all Washington speculated as to just who it might be. I think it was in late 1981 or early 1982 when Esquire magazine published an article in which Taylor Branch confronted David Gergen and declared him the hero or villain, depending on your politics. I was, of course, thrilled to know Durham’s own Dave Gergen might be the hero who’d saved America from the Nixon gang. After all, he and Bob Woodward had been classmates at Yale. But, Gergen was defiant in response to Esquire’s charge. He warmly recalled his days in the Nixon bunker as “like in the Marines” or “like in a war.” He pleaded with Branch not to write the story. “What will I tell my grandchildren?” he asked. Well, within days after that story was published, I ran into David on Dupont Circle. He was having lunch with his former secretary from the Nixon years and he asked me to tag along. It was a very pleasant lunch. To my surprise and delight, Gergen’s secretary turned to me and asked: “Don’t YOU think he was ‘Deep Throat’?” I laughed and said, “I sure hope so.” “By the way, David,” I said, “if you can’t tell your grandchildren you were Deep Throat, what WILL you tell them?” The question endures—especially as I see Gergen on all the talk shows now describing Mark Felt as a traitor and turncoat. Mark Felt will go down in history as the man who helped topple the most corrupt administration in American history [until now]. For three decades, I had held onto the hope that Gergen was Deep Throat. I had felt genuine shame and embarrassment for Gergen when I first heard he was part of the Nixon bunch. I still do. HOME • COMMENTARY • BOOKS • PLAYS • CONTACT |