Monday, Nov. 07, 2011

St. Augustine's alum hangs onto history

Every Wednesday, I spend a few hours with a wise man.

I've introduced you before to James Revis, a man I've known since I can remember knowing anybody and who, along with Almetta, his wife of 57 years, is an award-winning community servant.

He's a wealth of knowledge - and quite witty with it. He's also St. Augustine's College born and bred.

Each week, we talk about everything near and farther: from the weather, politics and religion, to the latest escapades of newsmakers and Everyman. We chat about family and sports, and about how things used to be and how they ought to be now.

With all the excitement lately about his alma mater fueling its own growth with a new athletic complex and its first game there last month, a lot of us got something twisted: It wasn't the first on-campus football game in St. Augustine's 144-year history.

Indeed, Mr. Revis assured, St. Augustine's played football on its campus when he was just a boy, probably around 12 or 13 years old.

"There was a wire fence," he recalled. "And they would let all the kids stand there and watch. Of course, I didn't know much about football back then, but I sure stood there and watched."

There is no need for any of us to endure any egg slime on our faces, though. Even a St. Augustine's website proclaims the first-ever gridiron match on the college's soil was just last month for homecoming.

"I suppose not many people are old enough to remember," quipped Mr. Revis, 83, always one to acknowledge his blessings from God and genetics.

Give Purdy Anders a call, he suggested confidently, challenging any notion I might have to dare question his memory.

Anders confirmed. "Oh, yes they did," he said when I told him what Mr. Revis told me. "I've seen them play out there myself, so that is correct."

Anders, who graduated from St. Augustine's in 1938, said the campus dining hall now sits on part of the land where the home games were played.

And as a side dish of wit, Mr. Revis, grinning ear to ear, chuckled and added, "The mascot hasn't always been the Falcons, either," his tone promising another nugget of local trivia. "We were the Horses."

That changed in the late '40s, both gentlemen told me, under the leadership of Harold L. Trigg, St. Augustine's first black president.

Of course, other things have changed, too, like the school's official name, over the years.

Sure is too bad for us that so much of our local history is buried, literally in the grave with folks who lived it, figuratively buried beneath voids in records, recollection and acknowledgment across generations. I suspect those voids are most dense in African-American communities.

With that - and notice of the N.C. Museum of History's planned big reveal Saturday of its Story of North Carolina exhibit - I'm reminded to wonder: If it's so tough to put our fingers around the history of our own community, what don't we know about the history of our home state?

In what's billed as the museum's largest-ever, the exhibit follows more than 14,000 years of Tar Heel State history, from early inhabitants through the 20th century.

"We believe visitors will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the people and events in North Carolina," said the museum's director, Ken Howard.

The exhibit is important. It's our history stored in artifacts, multimedia presentations, dioramas and hands-on interaction.

And it's permanent, the only one in the state telling North Carolina's history that will stay put.

All of our history is permanent. The good, the bad, the ugly and the profound carry no more weight than the precious revelations that simply serve up ah-ha moments.

Even when we lose our history, its permanence is part of what makes us, well, us. It's what connects us to community, colors our conversations and carves our course of growth and progress.

It's crucial we keep it that way.

I appreciate your wisdom, Mr. Revis.