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UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD
rm% street scribe
Giving Thanks for Socialism
NOVEMBER IS FILLED WITH RADICAL HISTORY
By Ed Tant news@flagpole.com
pub notes
Celebrating Chatham Murray
SHE WAS A PAINTER, AND ATHENS WAS HER PALETTE
By Pete McCommons pete@flagpole.com
“Socialism” is a word often bandied about
today by politicians, pundits and preach
ers who wouldn’t know a socialist from
a socialite. This nation that began with
its original sins of warfare against Native
Americans and slavery for Black people also
has a long and glorious legacy of positive
reforms that have benefitted all Americans.
Many of the battles for racial, social and
economic justice that were waged in United
States history were led by socialists and
other American activists, and this month of
November is filled with people and events
that are part of what historian Howard
Zinn called “radical history.”
Saintly socialist Eugene Victor Debs was
born in Terre Haute, IN, on Nov. 5,1855.
His long political odyssey took him from
state representative to labor union leader
to five-time candidate for president under
the Socialist Party banner. Debs went to jail
for his beliefs during the Pullman Strike of
1895 and again in 1918 for giving a speech
opposing World War I. In that 1918 speech
in Canton, OH, Debs thundered words that
still apply today: “In every age it has been
the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter
who has wrapped himself in the cloak of
patriotism or religion—or both—to deceive
and overawe the people.”
invited Debs to the White House after his
release. The Republican and the Socialist
had a cordial conversation, but the only
thing they told the press was that they both
liked Western “shoot ‘em up” movies star
ring Hollywood cowboy hero Tom Mix.
Debs died at 70 in 1926, his health rav
aged by his years in prison. Historian Zinn
praised Debs as “fierce in his convictions,
kind and compassionate in his personal
relations.” His life and legacy live on in
books like Democracy’s Prisoner by Ernest
Freeberg, and Debs probably would smile at
the fact that two contemporary beers, Debs
Red Ale and Revolution Eugene, are named
for him.
Debs was born in November and was
influenced by events that made American
radical history during this month. On
Nov. 11,1887, four radical labor activists
were executed in Chicago following deadly
clashes between police and protesters in the
city’s Haymarket district. When Debs left
prison, he visited their Haymarket Martyrs
memorial at Chicago’s Waldheim Cemetery.
On Nov. 23,1887, days after the Chicago
executions, dozens of striking African-
American sugar cane workers were killed by
state militia members and white vigilantes
in Thibodaux, LA. On Nov. 19,1915, activist
Eugene V. Debs leaves federal prison in Atlanta on Christmas Day 1921.
Debs was given a 10-year prison sen
tence for his anti-war speech. He waged
his last presidential campaign from a jail
cell, garnering nearly a million votes in
the 1920 election with his slogan “For
President: Convict No. 9653.” President
Woodrow Wilson called Debs a traitor and
refused to mitigate his sentence. After
Democrat Wilson left the presidency, his
Republican successor, Warren Harding,
commuted the activist’s sentence, and Debs
left Atlanta Federal Prison. Hundreds of
convicts cheered when Debs walked free,
and thousands of people joined in a raucous
celebration when Debs returned back home
again to Indiana just in time to celebrate
Christmas in 1921. President Harding
songwriter and accused murderer Joe Hill
was executed in Utah. During the Everett
Massacre in Washington state on Nov. 5,
1916, five union men were killed by cops
and vigilantes. On Nov. 11,1919, a mob led
by American Legion members attacked an
Industrial Workers of the World union hall
in Centralia, WA. The mob lynched Wesley
Everest, a union man and World War I vet
eran who said, “I fought for democracy in
France, and I’ll fight for it here.” In 1917,
radical poet and artist Ralph Chaplin memo
rialized those who fought and died during
this month in history: “Red November,
Black November, bleak November, black and
red/Hallowed month of labor’s martyrs,/
Labor’s heroes, labor’s dead.” ©
Friends recently celebrated the life of
Chatham Murray, who died a year ago
in August from diabetic complications.
Chatham was a one-of-a-kind, widely
known Athens fixture who loved her
friends unconditionally, but her love was
not blind. If your shirt was off a shade for
a good match with your pants, she’d hoot.
She couldn’t help it. She was a painter.
There was no such thing as “close.” In her
painting, that shade of white was either just
exactly the right color for that highlight on
that bowl or it didn’t work.
into an eternal experience which flows from
the mind’s eye to the eye of the beholder.”
In her life as in her art, Chatham
demanded perfection from herself, and she
expected it from everybody. She made you
live at your best, even though you knew
she’d still love you when you fell short.
She turned her uncompromising eye on
the world and expected justice, and she
fought to make it happen. When something
needed doing, she did it. When people
needed helping, she helped them, even
though her own means were slender. You
Chatham with friends back in the day—(l-r) Susan Tate, Wayne Amos, Mark Brown, Chatham, John
Hawkins—at her home, which she rescued from demolition.
While in high school, Chatham studied
with the famous Chatov brothers, portrait
painters in Atlanta. At UGA, she studied
with Lamar Dodd, Jim Herbert, Howard
Thomas, Charlie Morgan and others on that
fine faculty. In New York, she studied at The
Art Students League. Returning to Athens,
she earned her MFA, again under the tute
lage of Lamar Dodd and others. In later life,
at Lyndon House Arts Center, she enjoyed
painting under the
friendly guidance of
her esteemed teacher
Charles Warnock.
Her friend, the
art historian Buck
Pennington, wrote of
Chatham’s artistry:
“And, I looked at art with Chatham. In her
studio I learned about being painterly as I
watched her cast brush strokes that glided
like slightly softened butter across the
planar field. We went places to see art, like
Washington, D.C., with our friend Charlie
Hunnicutt, where we lingered late in the
National Gallery and the Corcoran before
actual Sargent portraits. Chatham would
point out ‘shine marks,’ richly impastoed
bits of drapery, edges of drifting clouds or
distant landscapes, laid down in close color
harmonics whose tones drew the eye in and
shut the real world out. From Chatham I
learned that art is not only illustrative, it is
a crafted artifact that renders the moment
didn’t need to wonder where you stood with
Chatham, because she was as frank and
direct with her friends as with her foes. She
was as Southern as we come—charming
and friendly and helpful, from an old and
distinguished family, loving her home and
her friends and enjoying entertaining and
being entertained—but she was no-non
sense when it was time to act: Get food to
somebody, sit up with a sick friend, put a
roof on the house,
walk the dogs or put
paint down. Hers was
a do-it-yourself life,
and she did it her way.
After a career in
sign-painting, which
put a Chatham-
original hand-painted sign on many down
town businesses, along with her side gig
as the illustrator who defined the look
of The Athens Observer, she threw herself
into political activism that culminated
in her election as a delegate to the 1972
Democratic National Convention. Finally,
she reinvented herself as the frugal, hard
working, stubborn rescuer of down-and-out
old houses that she ultimately turned into
treasures, causing her to succeed hand
somely, not only for herself but for her
friends, her family, and her favorite chari
ties and community endeavors. And always
throughout her life Chatham lifted our spir
its—as she still does. ©
I watched her cast
brush strokes that
glided like slightly softened
butter across the planar field.
6 FLAGPOLE.COM | NOVEMBER 10, 2021