Secrets of State

“The difficulties we faced during Saddam’s Era are countless,” wrote Dr. Haider F. Abd- EL-Kareem, to Williams, his new American friend. “We are still suffering from deficiency
of drugs & medical supplies even after a year of Iraq liberation.

“We hoped our future would be bright.”

Dr. Williams, who is part of the Heaton, Fulghum and Williams gynecology and infertility practice, traveled along with 30 other physicians from the United States and Great Britain to Iraq in February. Iraqi physicians had asked the governing US authority to permit them to meet with fellow professionals; they had long been denied the opportunity to travel legally outside of their country, and the state of Iraqi medicine dated back to the 1950s. The Iraqis were eager to learn about new techniques, procedures and advances in medical care denied to Iraq’s 25 million people.

“It was a great experience for them—and for us,” said Williams, a graduate of UNC Medical School in his 15th year of practice in Raleigh. He was asked to be part of the group by a friend in the US military, and he jumped at the chance despite the risk. “Unless you get on the ground over there, you don’t understand at all how much they appreciate what the United States has done in liberating them and how much they want a normal quality of life.”

The group, officially invited by the US Army medical Corp, was flown into Baghdad aboard a C-130 transport aircraft. With the fighting that continues in Iraq and the fact that missiles have been fired at aircraft going in and out of Baghdad International Airport, Williams said the doctors were given a fascinating introduction to Iraqi life.

“We went down in a dead man’s spiral—they drop in right over the airport instead of a flight path,” Williams recalled with a nervous laugh. “It was kind of like being in an elevator, but they drop the bottom out of it.”

Once on the ground, the doctors were taken to the so-called Green Zone—the largely controlled US area of Baghdad that is still attacked frequently with rockets, mortars and car bombs.

“Our conference was supposed to be in an area called Medical City, but two days before it was to start, they found a bomb directly under the podium that Paul Bremer (the US administrator of Iraq) was supposed to use,” Williams said. “They moved the conference inside the Green Zone.”

Despite advice from security officials, the doctors—including Williams—left the Green Zone to visit Iraqi hospitals. The experience left him stunned.

“We visited the nicest hospital in Iraq in the Sunni triangle,” he said, referring to an area controlled by Saddam’s Baath Party. “That was where all the elite had lived, and it was a fourth-world hospital. I’ve operated in Haiti. This hospital was similar to what I had seen in Haiti. It was mind-boggling.”

Williams pointed out that the doctors were very professional, spoke English, and were very committed to their patients. “This is an oil-rich country,” he said, “but their technology dated to the 1950s.”

The visiting delegation also experienced culture shock when staying at Saddam’s major palace in Baghdad. “It was just indescribable—something right out of Arabian Nights,” Williams said. “It was ostentatious, just huge, with all the beautiful mosaic tiles and chandeliers.”

In addition to sharing medical knowledge with the Iraqis, the doctors also agreed to help them establish medical societies, residency boards, and “how to work together in a collegial environment.” The doctors were also invited to return in the fall, and Williams said he plans to make the trip.

He found the experience to be very emotional, but another doctor was even more deeply moved. Williams sat on the C-130 next to Dr. Maha Alattar, who is part of the neurology department at UNC and is a native of Iraq. The trip to her homeland was the first since she and her family had been exiled more than
20 years ago. Eleven of her male cousins had been executed.

Despite what people may see on TV or read in the press, Dr. Williams stressed that almost all Iraqis are glad that the United States freed their country. “There is an incredibly small subset of religious extremists and ex-Baathists who want civil war and realize they have no future in a democratic Iraq,” he said. “For the other 24.5 million people, they do a pretty good job
of convincing you that they want to improve their quality of life and are glad that we freed their country.”

Garden Gallery to Re-Open in Raleigh
Herb Jackson, Wayne Taylor, Laura Grosch, Keith Rose, Gayle Lowry, the late Joe Cox—these are a few of the artists whose original work will be on display and available for purchase on Sunday, May 16, beginning at 1 p.m. when the doors to the legendary Garden Gallery will re-open in Raleigh after a 22-year hiatus.

“We always missed it, and it just seems like the time to do it again,” said landscape architect and author Richard C. Bell, FASLA, FAAR. Bell, along with his wife, art aficionado and educator Mary Jo Bell, and partner, rare-book dealer Kenneth (“Kep”) Parrish of Raleigh, will resurrect what many considered the premiere, cutting-edge contemporary art gallery in the state when they re-open The Garden Gallery. Located at 8404 Glenwood Avenue across from Sir Walter Chevrolet, the gallery is the centerpiece of Bell’s landmark Water Garden complex of natural and constructed architecture (1955-73).

The original Garden Gallery opened in 1963 and closed in 1982. Like the original, the new gallery will feature major, original contemporary art (painting, sculpture and pottery) with a limited offering of non-contemporary works, including English watercolors. Artists included in the gallery will not be limited to North Carolinians or to living artists, according to Parrish, who cited works from artists across the nation.

“We also hope to have a number of our ‘old’ artists,” Bell said, “to give them their due, to resurrect them, so to speak. Old artists and newer ones coming along—just like we did in the original gallery.”

The revived Garden Gallery is actually the first ingredient in the planned Water Garden Market Place, a unique shopping center with approximately 380,000 square feet of retail, office and residential space. Going beyond focusing on “food, shelter and clothing,” Bell said the intention is to attract people “who want to start living and working in [the Water Garden complex],” where Bell first founded his award-winning landscape architecture firm. The firm has evolved into Bell, Glazener, Jenkins Planning & Design Associates, which promises to keep The Garden Market Place faithful to the original organic architecture and naturalized landscaping of the Water Garden complex. The center has been approved by the City of Raleigh and should break ground this year. “It’s the best work I’ve ever done,” said Bell, who can count among his work Figure Eight Island and Raleigh’s Pullen Park.

After the grand re-opening in May, The Garden Gallery will be open to the public Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Sunday from 1-5 p.m., and at other times
by appointment. For more information, 919-787-2999.

—Kim Weiss

Airlie Festival to Feature 100 Top Southern Artists
The Second Annual Airlie Arts Festival, to be held in Wilmington April 30-May 2 on the grounds of Airlie Gardens, will feature 100 visual artists from the South displaying and selling their works. Adding a festive air will be a variety of jazz and folk musicians, an interactive Children’s Art in the Garden, food and special events.

To kick off the weekend, an Arts Festival Gala/Fundraiser will provide dining and dancing in an atmosphere reminiscent of “The Big Easy.” Also, guests will have an opportunity to meet the artists, peruse and purchase fine arts and crafts during the evening.

Plein air painters, who follow a centuries old tradition of painting landscapes out in the open air, are converging on Wilmington from California, Wyoming, Alabama and other states to capture the beauty of the area and to support the Airlie Arts Festival. Among them will be John Poon, winner of Best Landscape in the Art for the Parks national competition, and Perry Austin, whose paintings reside in the permanent collection of the Comer Arts Museum.

Another special event of the Festival will be the Gelede Spectacles! Pavilion, set up in the Gardens and presented by the African American Dance Ensemble Residency Project. The Project and accompanying events will be anchored at the Cameron Art Museum. The Pavilion on Airlie will display African-inspired artwork created by project participants, hold unity processionals taught by Dr. Chuck Davis and the African American Dance Ensemble, and present storytelling, drum circles and children’s interactive art activities, culminating with an evening concert on May 1 performed by Durham’s famed African American Dance Ensemble on Airlie Arts Festival’s main stage.

Airlie Arts Festival hours will be Friday, April 30, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (Gala, tickets required, 6 p.m.); Saturday, May 1, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (concert, 6 p.m.); Sunday, May 2, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Call 910-798-7700 or visit www.airliearts.org.

Art Museum to Display Work by Mentally I'll
To raise awareness of artistic talent within the state’s mentally ill community, the UNC Department of Psychiatry in Chapel Hill will host an opening reception for “Brushes with Life: Art, Artists and Mental Illness” to be held in the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Egyptian Gallery on May 8.

In the spring of 2000, a UNC committee representing the Schizophrenia Treatment and Evaluation Program (STEP) was formed to provide in- and outpatients with an opportunity to display their artwork in the hallways of the NC Neurosciences Hospital. By inspiring patients to be artistically creative, the committee created an art gallery that represents mental illness in
a positive light while decreasing social stigmas surrounding mental illness. Last year, STEP took its exhibition to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

The NCMA/UNC partnership began in May of 2003 with a yearlong series of programs providing structured, creative opportunities for psychiatric outpatients. Artists and art therapists conducted a pilot series of workshops at UNC with patients and staff that included painting, drawing with pencil, oil, pastels and clay projects.

The May reception has been planned to take place during North Carolina’s Mental Health Awareness Month to acknowledge those living with mental impairments and to celebrate the UNC/NCMA partnership. Comprising over 30 works, the exhibition will be on display in the Museum’s Education Lobby from April 18 through August 15 before its tour to 12 arts councils across the state. For more information, contact Crystal Miller, UNC Department of Psychiatry, at 919-966-9115. The event is also supported by AstraZeneca.

Raleigh Freshman Influences UNC Summer Reading
Incoming freshmen at UNC Chapel Hill will be reading about West Point and America, not Islam or an attack on capitalism, as part of their required preparatory reading this summer. And Zach Clayton, a rising sophomore from Raleigh, is a major reason.

Clayton, a Broughton High School graduate and Morehead Scholar, was asked by a friend in UNC’s student government to be part of the nine-member committee to select the summer reading topic. The Islamic title two years ago (Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations)—chosen after the terror attacks of 9-11-01—created a furor. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America was picked for 2003. Its scathing critique of American free enterprise also created controversy.

This time, the choice is Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point.

“It is absolutely patriotic, and another thing I hope Absolutely American does is spark a conversation about what it means to be an American in our times,” Clayton said. The economics major wants more of his fellow young people to become involved in the political process. He is determined that incoming freshmen appreciate the opportunity they have in attending UNC.

“The statistics are just horrendous with young people’s apathy toward politics,” Clayton said. “Only 32 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds voted in the 2000 election. That’s a poor statement on the sense of citizenship. Anything we can do to encourage our peers to become more active is not only for the sake of our country, but for ourselves as well. It’s an important step toward becoming useful citizens.”

The book, written by Rolling Stone magazine journalist David Lipsky, chronicles a class through four years at the US Military Academy at West Point.

“It’s not a perfect book, but I enjoyed reading it,” said Clayton. “It raises really important questions when students come to UNC. I am really shocked to hear no one say to the freshmen that they need to think about what they are going to do over the next four years because this is an opportunity to attend one of the best public schools in the country, and the education is financed by taxpayers. Two-thirds of the costs are subsidized by people working for the minimum wage at McDonald’s all the way up to the CEO of Wachovia Bank.

“There’s no talk about the obligation we have as citizens. I think that is really missing on campus. Absolutely American lends an interesting avenue to professors and students to engage in a conversation about what is duty to our country, to our state and to our fellow citizens during an election year.

“The book helps you develop a genuine appreciation for the West Point Cadets and their sacrifices and commitment,” he added. “They have to serve five years in the military after they graduate, and they may be killed. Their nine-year commitment is half the life I have lived so far.”

The committee reviewed more than 500 books that were suggested by more than 100 members of the campus community. The process took months until the list was finally cut to five. Clayton and fellow student Jenny Peddycord, also a freshman from North Carolina, pushed for Absolutely American. Their insistence helped seal the choice.

“Jenny and I really laid out the case for the book,” Clayton said. “A lot of people had really wanted to cut it out.” It won on a 5-4 vote.

Writing and civic involvement are nothing new for Clayton, who is the son of Jack Clayton, regional executive for Wachovia Bank in Raleigh. While at Broughton, Clayton chaired the National Association of Student Councils as a senior. The group produced the book Freedom’s Answer: When the Twin Towers Fell, the Next Generation Rose.

He missed being old enough to vote in the 2002 election by “about 10 days.” Come November, Clayton looks forward quite eagerly to making a choice as a responsible citizen.

“I’m very excited,” he said, “about voting for President in 2004.”

—Rick Smith

Architect McKimmon Honored
Raleigh architect Arthur McKimmon has been inducted into the state of North Carolina’s Order of Long Leaf Pine for his service to the Raleigh community. McKimmon, born in Raleigh in 1918, was a 1940 graduate of the NC State School of Architecture and Engineering where, after a stint as an officer in the US Navy, he taught briefly before beginning his own practice in 1948. He retired in 1994.

McKimmon’s projects include the restoration of the original State Bank in downtown Raleigh, buildings on the campus of Peace College and St. Mary’s College (including the serpentine wall surrounding the Hillsborough Street campus), and 175 residences in the area ranging from Georgian to contemporary, each known for their interior detail and exterior style.

Down East Scholar to Deliver Lectures on Southern History
Dr. Pete Daniel of Spring Hope, curator at the Smithsonian Institution, will deliver the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History at Louisiana State University, April 22 & 23. The lectures are perhaps the nation’s most prestigious on southern history, and Daniel is at least the third scholar with strong North Carolina ties to deliver them.

C. Vann Woodward, Ph.D. from UNC-CH and “the most eminent and influential authority on Southern history,” delivered the Lectures as did Dr. John Hope Franklin, now James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and the nation’s most celebrated African-American historian.

Daniel received the BA and MA degrees from Wake Forest University and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. He has written five books, including Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880 (winner of the Charles S. Sydnor Prize from the Southern Historical Association and the Herbert Feis Prize from the American Historical Association) and Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s (winner of the Elliott Rudwick Prize from the Organization of American Historians).

Daniel will deliver three lectures titled “Toxic Drift: Pesticides and Health, 1945-1970.” Using a pesticide poisoning case from Sunflower County, Mississippi, Daniel will discuss pesticide-induced illnesses, drift from crop dusters, residue problems, a general disregard for safety and lax enforcement of laws governing pesticide use.

—Carroll Leggett

Beaufort Music Festival Celebrates 16th Year
The Beaufort Music Festival, which for 16 years has welcomed spring to the North Carolina coast, will strike up the bands on nine downtown stages this season, April 23, 24 and 25.

Bands slated to perform will appeal to all tastes, from jazz to Classical, Country to Pop, Bluegrass to Swing, Big Band to Zydeco. The Southernaires will open the event on Friday evening. Other groups will include Let It Be, Big Medicine, Blue Moon Jazz, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Unknown Tongues. They will perform on the Beaufort waterfront with the historic district for backdrop.

A special feature this year has created a buzz around the event. Sixteen artists have been invited to create their own interpretations of the festival’s well-known mascot, the pelican. These works of art will be placed outside for viewing in front of 16 local businesses during the festival and will be auctioned off on Sunday for fundraising for the next festival. The idea was adopted from an event inaugurated in Chicago (their notorious statues of cows were painted and dressed in different designs all over the city), in Lexington, NC (pigs, for their noted barbecue), and in Raleigh (wolves, for their NC State University mascot).

A stage and entertainment for kids will be manned by Beaufort’s singer/songwriter, Kitty West. The kids can participate in the music on stage. “Kitty and her kids” will perform on the grounds of the Beaufort Historic Site on Turner Street, Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

For additional information about the Beaufort Music Festival, call 252-422-6161 or visit www.beaufortmusicfestival.com. The Festival is free.

Revson honors Eli Evans with Gift to Carolina Jewish Center
The Charles H. Revson Foundation of New York has honored its president emeritus, Eli N. Evans, with a $250,000 gift to the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The gift will establish a program in Evans’ name that supports outreach activities on campus and in communities across North Carolina. Among the program’s features will be an annual scholar-in-residence to present a public lecture and meet with students, faculty and the community and lectures to be given by UNC- Chapel Hill faculty to public groups in urban and rural communities.

Eli Evans, who was graduated from Carolina in 1958 and Yale Law School in 1963, chairs the advisory board for the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, established in the College of Arts and Sciences in 2003. A Durham native, Evans was a speechwriter on the staff of President Lyndon B. Johnson and directed former NC Gov. Terry Sanford’s “Study of American States” on the future of state government.

Evans joined the Carnegie Corp., a national education foundation, in 1968. In 1978, he became the first president of the Revson Foundation, where he oversaw grants totaling more than $147 million to Jewish causes, urban affairs, education and biomedical research. He retired in 2003 after 25 years at the foundation.

Evans lives in New York City with his wife Judith; his son Josh is a freshman at UNC. He was featured in the September 2003 issue
of Metro in a special feature on influential North Carolinians in New York City. Go to www.metronc.com and click on archives.