Last Sunday in Durham

The past few weeks here in the Raleigh -Durham -Chapel Hill area were filled with the type of weather you’d rather read about than have to live through: rain, snow, black ice in the mornings, a damp cold and the occasional wind to cut through most clothing. This section of North Carolina tends to get a serious dose of what winter is like every two or three years, and this was our reminder of why we don’t live in the northern states.

By the end of last week, however, things started turning around. The skies turned blue again, the temperatures started climbing and by the weekend it was time to relieve that cabin fever and get outside.

All of which makes the crowd of close to 120 people that showed up to listen to author Leslie Brown give her presentation on the history of Durham’s communities all that more impressive.

As we blogged last week before the event, Brown was speaking in association with her book “Upbuilding Black Durham” which had just won the 2009 Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians.

Brown spoke to an enthusiastic crowd, striking the overall tone of her book by reminding the audience that, “History is not just names and dates, but what people did and how they did it.”

— tom