⑰The meaning of things @ August Wilson Center for African American Culture Theater

“We live not by things but by the meanings of things and it is needful to pass the keys from generation to generation.” Dr. Mindy Fullilove, a social psychiatrist from Columbia University quoted Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s, the famous French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator who also wrote the best selling international novella, The Little Prince. But Dr. Fullilove wasn’t giving a French literary lecture on June 18, 2012 in August Wilson Center for African American Culture Theater, instead she was talking about the history and future of Pittsburgh. The name of lecture was The Meaning of Things: Pittsburgh’s 21st Century Triumph over 20th Century Urban Renewal, which drew about 400 people in the theater. I was fortunately to be one of them.

In her talk, she shared a couple of stories. One story sticks with me today. Didn't catch the name of the village, but the story is something like this: A small village somewhere in the world might appear to be unimportant or interesting to people who don’t know the history behind it. But the people living there take a great deal of pride in their village. The reason why this small village was built and people were living there starting to get rich, was because of a forest fire in Georgia. Unfortunately the burned forest used to be a supply center for British army during the war. So the British came to the pine forest where this village was located at that time and started to demand for materials from the forests, and the rest became the history of the village. So a minister once said “ A village in a pine forest is a village in a pine forest in the world”. This story truly showed our inter-connectedness to the world.

In her community story, some of those prices the City of Pittsburgh paid in its 20th century renewal, such as East Liberty and Hill District, which largely related to race and class separations, were used as examples. Nevertheless she believes that Pittsburgh is a place that learns from its mistakes and re-discovers its value among people, different people, and takes actions to do something about it. “All American cities suffer from a history of what I call ‘sorting out’—being sorted by race and class; it’s not different from any other American city,” Dr. Fullilove said.“That’s what’s so interesting: Why has Pittsburgh engaged with this and decided to become a much more connected city? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think it’s happening elsewhere in the United States.”

I personally believe it’s great leadership and individual responsibility with each organization, citizen, and resident taking on issues within the city that are making those many wonderful things happen. It’s the interconnectedness, the success, the historic heritage, and the challenges ahead that this blog wanting to share the uniqueness of the City’s attraction. It makes you want to be part of it, share its stories, make it better towards the direction you envision, and pursue that direction with diligence, constant inspiration, and support.

Beer winning trivia @ Hill District, East Liberty in 20th century, August Wilson Center

1. African-American Blacken Pittsburgh, prosperously: The years 1916-1930 marked the largest migration of African-Americans to Pittsburgh. Wylie Avenue in the Hill District was an important Jazz mecca, known as the cultural nucleus of Black Pittsburgh.  known as the cultural nucleus of Black Pittsburgh, Jazz great Pittsburgh natives Bill Strayhorn and Earl Hines, played there. Two of the Negro League's greatest rivals, the Pittsburgh Crawford and the Homestead Grays, often competed in the Hill District. The teams dominated the Negro National League in the 1930s and 1940s.

2. Hill District and East Liberty were drastically changed during the 1946-1973 Renaissance I Urban Renewal Project. Ninety-five acres of the lower Hill District were cleared using eminent domain, forcibly displacing hundreds of small businesses and over 1,200 residents, to make room for a cultural center that included the Civic Arena for Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and then Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey team, which opened in 1961 and demolished in 2010. Other than one apartment building, none of the other buildings planned for the cultural center were ever built. In East Liberty, from early 1960s, over 125 acres demolished and replaced with garden apartments, three 20-story public housing apartments, and a convoluted road-way system that circled a pedestrianized shopping district. In the span of just a few years during the mid-1960s, East Liberty became a blighted neighborhood. There were some 575 businesses in East Liberty in 1959, but only 292 in 1970, and just 98 in 1979. [ Preservation efforts by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, along with community neighborhood groups, resisted the “Grand” demolition plans during Renaissance I. The neighborhoods containing rich architectural heritage, including the Mexican Wa Streets, Allegheny West, and Manchester, were spared.]

3. August Wilson was born in 1945 Pittsburgh's Hill District, died in 2005 in Seattle, Washington, and was interred at Pittsburgh Greenwood Cemetery the same year. He was an author and  playwright who dropped out of high school but used the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to such an extent that the library later awarded him a degree, which is the only one that it has ever bestowed. He moved to St. Paul Minnesota in 1978 and in 1987 the major of St. Paul named May 27 the “August Wilson Day” for he was the only person came from Minnesota and won a Pulitzer Prize for his work Fences. In 1990, Wilson moved to Seattle, where he developed a relationship with Seattle Repertory Theatre. It’s the only theater in the country to produce all of the works in his ten-play cycle “Pittsburgh Cycle” and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned.

Your ID @ The meanings of things

What’s the name of the village mentioned in the article?

What are the ten plays in the “Pittsburgh Cycle” also known as “Century Cycle”?