Georgia Gazette

I'm Tom Patton and this is Georgia Gazette. Coming up, the Virgin Mary makes her final appearance at Nancy Fowler's Farm in Conjures. And political scientist Charles Bullock sets the stage for the final three weeks of campaigning before in the November general election, so stay tuned. This past Wednesday, thousands of people flock to Nancy Fowler's small farm outside Conjures, a community east of Atlanta, hoping to receive a message from the Virgin Mary. The faithful have made the farm a gathering place in October of 1990 when Fowler began to relay what she said, where messages given to her during visions of the Holy Mother. According to Monsignor Peter Bok's person for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, this kind of apparition is nothing new to the Catholic Church. An apparition is a visible appearance of Jesus, or Mary, his mother, in a way that cannot

be explained, obviously, by science or by ordinary phenomena, usually accompanied by the transmission of some message. Dora says the Church has officially recognized certain apparitions in the past, but not the ones in Conjures. That hasn't deterred the many believers who turned out this week to hear what Fowler says is her last public message. And as Melissa Gray reports, the faithful say that this ending might just be the beginning. Tens of thousands of people watched the sunrise while inching along a narrow two-lane road outside of Conjures, Georgia. They came from as far away as South America, packed beyond comfortable capacity in buses and minivans. Some drove more than 24 straight hours to pray at Nancy Fowler's farm, and when they finally arrived, a volunteer clad in a white Virgin Mary t-shirt gave them their first taste of grace.

In a cow pasture turned parking lot, Patti Carlson directs the stream of cars with a rosary in one hand and an orange traffic flag in the other. She's been doing this for hours, and yet she still radiates undistilled joy onto every group that passes by. Somebody said, oh, this is such a long line. I said, what do you think is going to be like getting in heaven? Patti's no stranger to the Fowler farm. She's been coming here for five years. She says on her first visit, she saw the spinning sun smell the scent of roses in the air and felt the presence of the Holy Virgin. Patti says the experience changed her life, and now she comes back to conures as often as she can. I love being here. I love Jesus and Mary. Blessed Mother has gotten me through. She's taken a pen and God bless you. You know, she brings us to the Lord, that's why she says she's here to bring us to her son. The Virgin Mary, or the chance of possibly seeing the Virgin Mary, has drawn the faithful and the curious to Nancy Fowler's house since 1990.

That's when Fowler says the Holy Mother began appearing to her with messages on a semi-regular basis. But Fowler says this year's vision will be her last. Mary told her so. Holy Mary, Mother of God, great for us sinners, now that you are our death of Him. Pilgrims clutched rosaries and crucifixes as they awaited the Virgin's final address. It came promptly at 130 in the afternoon as Fowler sat in the apparition room of her modest gray house. Minutes later, Fowler came outside to share the Virgin's words. Please, children. For favor, niños. Stop offending God. Paren, defender adios. Please. For favor. God is the Creator. And He is, He is, sovereign over all creation. This is the same message as the gospel where a call to repent turn away from sin and to

live a holy life and holy means belong to God. This priest, who wishes to remain anonymous, was one of the dozens of clergy present at the apparition site. He says it doesn't matter that the Catholic Church refuses to recognize Fowler's claims. Instead of the fruits of the apparition, are people going to mass or people living a more holy life? Are people loving one another and keeping the commandments? And if that is so, then the church will look at the fruits of it and say, humanity is hungry for something supernatural. And if it doesn't find it in God, we will often turn to things that are not from God. This is the Blessed Mother and she appears in a triangular shape. If you imagine her body with her head and her arms outstretched to her fingers and then down to her toes. It makes a diamond shape. Debbie Smith of Charlotte, North Carolina, looks for the supernatural in God. To her, the amorphous clouds and prisms of light caught on her Polaroid pictures are evidence of the very presence of God. I pray always before I take a picture and I ask that the Blessed Mother make something

come out that will touch someone else because I already believe. Debbie's fate and her conviction about the holiness of this site is so strong that she convinced 71 people from the internet to meet her here this year. Fellowship is also what motivates Carmina Fernandez of Monterey, Mexico. This is her second visit and she feels fortunate to have heard the Holy Mother's message. I am very devoted to Mary if she will appear somewhere else I'll try to go there. But I came last year and I came this year so I'm lucky. A few people said they were sad that the Virgin would no longer appear in conures. But many refused to be disappointed, including Tom Dystra of Gainesville, Florida. Tom says he became a true believer several years ago after experiencing the Holy Mother's presence here first hand. I've been known as nostalgic feelings. I don't look at this and think it's all going to disappear because basically what it did is to set me off in a direction that I'll never be able to move away from and conures

just kind of started it though, but it's not based upon conures. But the feeling now continues pretty much wherever I am right now, it's a sort of interior thing and usually comes through reading books, spiritual books, deep profound mystical theology type books that comes and because of that it could be done sitting at home resting on my mattress. Nancy Fowler says the Virgin Mary wants a church built on the farm so Fowler will turn her property over to the Catholic church for that purpose. Some locals believe that the massive gatherings at Fowler's farm are over. But many of the faithful say the ending of the apparitions will give the church time to investigate Fowler's claims and they hope conures Georgia will eventually become as recognized as Fatima Portugal or Guadalupe, Mexico. I thank you, David, whose ways are so sure for giving us Mary our mother most pure. In conures, I'm Melissa Gray for Georgia Gazette. The election day is left in three weeks away and several races are generating a lot of

interest around the state of Georgia and joining me now is University of Georgia Political Scientist Dr. Charles Bollock, thanks for joining us today. Dr. Bollock, Bob Dole was in Georgia this week campaigning for a senator covered Del and he said that Michael Coles is basically wasted a million and a half dollars on advertising. Has Mr. Coles wasted his money? Well, he certainly hasn't made this a competitive race. Indeed, this is one of the contests for the Senate around the country which has shifted towards the Republicans and there have been two things that have happened. Some contests like this one in Georgia which were initially thought to be toss-ups have now moved in the Republican direction and they go in the opposite direction. Some contests where democratic senators were thought to be fairly safe, such as Barbara

Boxer and California, have shifted into the dead heat or even maybe towards the Republican direction. So we've seen at least at the Senate contests some general shifting towards the GOP and Georgia certainly falls within that category. Paul Coverdale has done a very good job of running some advertising and getting his name recognition up was thought initially that he might have some problems with not being known or being known for a particular set of interests. He's done some good advertising and now he has opened up lead which polls generally show to be at least ten points and maybe even as much as fifteen or even twenty points on polls have shown. Now moving over to the governor's race it's pretty much a statistical of dead heat right now in fact Republican guy Milner's poll numbers have been flat for quite a while. How do you see this race shaping up here in the last couple of weeks before the election? Well that's probably going to get even closer than we're seeing and right now the polls are showing at three maybe five point difference but you're right if you go all the way back to March Milner has not made any headway on his position in the polls. He's spent millions of dollars on television and if anything his support has perhaps sagged

a bit while over the same period of the last seven months Roy Barnes who started off and had a problem of not being widely known outside the Atlanta Mentoria has come on pretty strong and is now as you said made it a statistical dead heat. As we get into the final few weeks we're going to see an awful lot of advertising for both of these candidates and what they're doing is they're fighting over a very small segment of the Georgia electorate that's still up for grabs. Have Milner's flatbed truck debates backfired on him do you think? Well they got him a little bit of publicity initially but since that time they seem to be largely ignored. One of things we haven't seen much of has been head-to-head debates between the two candidates. Milner initially did not want to do that back in the primary and in the runoff. Now he said he wants to but for whatever reason these two candidates have not been very visible to us at least at the same time certainly they've been quite visible to us as individuals because they've spent millions of dollars on television.

But the voter who's out there looking to try to assess how Milner how bar and stand on issues how they respond to questioners that kind of Georgia voter hasn't had much opportunity to do that. In the Lieutenant Governor's race the pretty much popular wisdom is that Mitch Schandalakus and Mark Taylor are pretty similar on the issues. So is this one shaping up to be an Atlanta versus the rest of Georgia race? It may well do that. Yeah and Taylor is the first candidate from South Georgia to be in a position to win a statewide office in a decade now. So I think he's going to be the hometown favorite of much of Georgia which is going to be South of Macon. You're certainly seeing off a lot more of his signs when you travel around that part of the state. So my expectation is they're going to be a number of voters who will typically think of themselves as Republicans but may make an exception and vote for Mark Taylor because they think there needs to be someone at the table who is from their region and who will be responsive to their regions. If we look at the kind of vote that came out of the runoff we see that not only did Taylor sweep South Georgia in the Democratic side but the Schandalakus was beaten in South

Georgia by Clint Day who was his opponent in the Republican runoff. So Schandalakus I think has a ways to go to try to cut into Taylor's base. Now the problem with Taylor's base is that South Georgia casts only somewhere between one in four and one in five votes in a general election. So even if Taylor runs very well in South Georgia he's got to also make inroads in North Georgia because that's where the bulk of the votes are and particularly in Metro Atlanta. What's been Governor Zell Miller's role in this campaign so far? Well it hasn't been very visible only last week that he cut an ad in which he very strongly endorsed the candidacy of Roy Barnes. I understand he has a similar kind of ad which he'll be released on behalf of Thurbert Baker who was his administration floor leader in the House and who's now candidate for Attorney General. Having Zell Miller in your corner can't hurt you but it's difficult for the popularity of even the most popular politician to rub off on others. Now given the kinds of very close contests we're seeing in a number of these state-wide

elections, Zell Miller's popularity if it could move even just a few percentage points of the vote could be quite instrumental in determining the outcome. And with a candidate, with a retiring governor who was popular with 85% of the electorate, he can be an asset although he's not going to be able to save someone who is struggling in the polls. But he could perhaps provide that balance or that extra increment to elect those who are very competitive. Is negative advertising going to affect the turnout around the state of Georgia? Well it usually does. The typical impact of negative advertising turns off voters who are not strongly committed to a candidate to a party. Now if you're very much committed to voting Democratic or Republican or you really like Roy Barnes or Guy Miller then the negative advertising you're probably going to see through a lens which says the other guys are pretty rotten guy into people in my folks who are being picked on unfairly and you'll go and vote. But the person who is kind of a marginal voter may become disgusted with both sides and

set it out. Again, because we anticipate such close contests for governor lieutenant governor, secretary of state attorney general, if you turn off just a few thousand voters, you may affect the outcome. You'll probably see that we have throughout this decade a lot of contests been decided by twenty five thirty thirty thousand thirty five thousand votes. Thanks very much Dr. Charles Bulk is a political scientist at the University of Georgia. Thank you always not as it seems on Georgia's Jekyll Island, scratch the surface of this former playground for America's richest and most famous families and you'll find a player upon layer of history going back hundreds even thousands of years or lend a

Montoya with member station WSVH in Savannah has our story. On the island because a number of the millionaires wanted their automobiles down here, they could only go six miles an hour and if they encountered them. Take a tour of Jekyll Island today and you'll hear about millionaires and dimensions they called home away from home. This little cottage on the left, the coral colored Mediterranean style belonged to Frank Gould, who was one of the sons of Edwin Gould. Edwin Gould was one of the sons of the ruthless Finns here in rural magnet Jekyll. Long before the rise of Jetsett Mecha's like Palm Beach and the French Riviera, America's fabulously rich made this eight mile stretch of Georgia coast their winter playground. For more than a half century beginning in the 1880s, families with names like Rockefeller and Morgan spent their winters here in Victorian luxury. It was a time called the club era. The millionaires built lavish cottages which today are well preserved and a big part of

the Jekyll Island tourist experience. So this was Rockefeller's house. The Rockefeller's cottage, the Rockefeller's purchased the cottage which had ended right there at that archway. This was Mecha's bedroom and his bathroom. When the Rockefeller's purchased it, they knocked out that wall extending this bedroom into the grand salon overlooking the waterway. But while island residents are proud of their club era past, many also feel it's time to explore a more overlooked chapter in Jekyll history, the island's pre-European past. As the state agency that runs Jekyll Island, the Jekyll Island authority is spending $27,000 to dig up parts of prehistoric Jekyll. Warren Murphy is the authorities director of museums and historic preservation. He says the island's history goes back 5,000 years.

That would put people on the island around the same time the Egyptians were building pyramids. Murphy says it's that rich Aboriginal history, he hopes, can be dug up and incorporated into a more well-rounded Jekyll Island tourist experience. We've concentrated the majority of our interpretive efforts of since state occupation on the Jekyll Island club experience. And in fact, the island history is so much richer than that, and it's time for us to build interpretive elements, incorporating everything on the island. And in order to do that appropriately, I have to gather information. At helping gather that information is Kristen Williams, archaeologist for the Atlanta-based Environmental Consulting firm, TRC Garrow. She says the kinds of artifacts she's already found could answer a lot of questions about who was living on Jekyll Island thousands of years ago. We want to know how the pre-torcanians lived, what their social organization may have been, how they existed, what kinds of political ties they may have had with surrounding groups,

evidences, spiritual beliefs. One question we're interested in is, did different groups migrate into the area and live amongst the groups already there, and if so, was there friction and how did their culture change? Williams has found several prehistoric sites on Jekyll Island, but she says the delicate work of excavating them is made more difficult by the presence of roads, construction, and other modern day nuisances. In spite of that, it's still very productive. We're very surprised to find a distinct historic layer in this oil profile and beneath that of relatively undisturbed prehistoric site. Now, there were some areas that were disturbed, but there are enough intact areas to make us feel very confident that a lot of information can come from work there. TRC Garrow will present a report on their findings to the Jekyll Island Authority sometime in November.

The authority will then make a decision on whether or not to dig deeper into Jekyll Island's past, in the meantime, tourists will have to be content with the club tour of Millionaire Wins and Getaways. OK, on the right, coming up a farmhouse on Jekyll Island, I'm Orlando Montoya. It's belonged to the Devinian family. This is the family that owned the island, sold it to the Millionaires in 1986. The kitchen is dismantled. Welcome to Wiregrass Ways, a celebration of the heritage and traditions of South Georgia. Wiregrass Ways is the production of WWE T. Valdosta, Peach State Public Radio. It takes ten for a large fruit and five for a small one.

It's a breezy, fall afternoon at the Tessa Homestead and Okifinokia National Wildlife Refuge. Judy Drury and her sister, Debbie Todd and their mother, Bernice Roddenberry, are making palmata brooms to sell at the annual Chesa Homestead open house. Roddenberry's uncle, Tom Chesa, built the homestead now open for tourists. Miss Bernice wasn't raised on Chesa's island, but she recalled making brooms with the older generation when she came to visit. Two of Miss Bernice's aunts are still living. Roxie Chesa Crawford, age 90. Remember using palmata brooms to sweep out the house. Roxie Crawford still makes and uses palmata brooms and swears by them for sweeping a cement porch or patio. Roddenberry's a green.

People buy them nowadays to use for patios. Some of them get them for decorations. For many South Georgians, making a palmata broom is a lost art. For the Roddenberry clan, it just takes a little time. Judy Drury learned from watching and working with her mother. Once the palmata is gathered from the woods, the first shelf is making the broom handle. I tell them whenever we start, you measure it and put 10 fronts together. They've been stripped of other sticky parts. The women slit three of the thickest stems and tie strips of cloth around the stalks,

securing the handle. She got a good tire. They can get them almost nice and round, which mom can do sometimes. I ask them to leave a loop for hanging. One thing you don't ever do with these frames is you don't ever leave them laying on them. They're standing up with the fronts on the floor. They'll mess with them up. What they'll do is they'll bend over, so they use your hang them up. Next step is separating the fans. You separate them in three pieces. It's going to be the head you've done to sweep them. The two outside pieces got to be smaller than the middle pieces. You know what about the same amount in each of those? And mom is the best judge about how much it's put in there sometimes. She'd do well. Where do you strip it? Have you ever seen a palmata farm? That's why. You have to strip it so it will be flexible and sweep all the dirt out. And then the chopper.

Where you chop all the ends off, mom. Just like that. We're more down. This has been Wiregrass Ways, a celebration of South Georgia Folk Life. Wiregrass Ways is written by Laurie Summers and produced by Tom McCord, Craig Glyne, and Teresa Sanders. I'm Martha Gibson. This program is supported by Valdosta State University, the Georgia Council for the Arts Folk Life Program, and the Georgia Humanities Council. Wiregrass Ways is a production of W-W-E-T. Valdosta, Peachtate Public Radio. Still to come on this edition of Georgia Gazette, the Atlanta Bavises and comes to a close before the World Series. We'll preview a new series on PBS that tells the history of slavery in America. Pause the music of America's premier Celtic rock fusion band, Seven Nations. Don't go away.

Major League Baseball's premier event, the World Series, kicks off this weekend. And for the second year in a row, it won't feature the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta String of Postes and Failures continued this week when the team lost the National League Championship Series to the San Diego Padres. The team's early exit from the playoffs has both the players and the fans, wondering if the Braves will ever reach the World Series again, much less win it. James Argroves reports. It appeared early this week that everything was falling into place for an improbable comeback by the Braves in the NLCS. On the brink of elimination, the team received new life with two come from behind victories over the Padres in San Diego. Those wins brought back a playoff type atmosphere that's been missing at Turner Field for the last couple of years. A boisterous crowd of more than 50,000 cheered, chopped and chanted throughout game

six, hoping to will the Braves on the victory. But it was not to be, and the Braves season came to a heartbreaking end with five to nothing Padres victory. It was a bitter defeat for a Braves team that won 106 games this season, the most in franchise history. Atlanta pitcher Daniel Nagel says what made the team's early elimination in the playoffs even more disappointing is that most of the players on the squad felt they had enough talent to win the World Championship. This team had it all. I mean, we blended well, I think, better in any Braves team I've been on, and probably better in any Braves team I played against when I was over in Pittsburgh too. I mean, for the first time in a while, we had the great offense to go with the great pitching staff and we also led the league in defense this year. You know, so we had some great compliments in this team that really led us all to believe that we could do it all this year and we fell short of it again. Braves went into the series as the favorites, where we're outplayed in every aspect of the game by a Padres team that used clutch hitting strong pitching and good defense to win the National League Pinnett and a date with the New York Yankees in the World Series. This isn't the first time that the Braves have entered the playoffs as the team

to beat only to come up short. Despite seven consecutive division titles, Atlanta has won only one World Championship and the team's lack of playoff success has called its heart and character into question. Third baseman, Chipper Jones says, however, that it's unfair to label the team as underachievers. Yeah, you'd like to win World Series year in and year out, but I don't think people realize how tough it is because, you know, if you're not playing good baseball, if you're not a little bit lucky, you're not going to win. Atlanta pitcher John Smose agrees and says while the team has it played up to its potential in the last few years, it shouldn't diminish what the team has accomplished this decade. Well, it's definitely frustrating. I don't think that it's incomplete, though. I don't think that we feel like we haven't accomplished anything. You know, every year you get to this, you're doing something. Every year you have to prove it. I mean, you don't go, well, I can just rest on my record or Tom's right now. You can't, you know, every year it's different.

It's post season's different. You have to prove it year in and year out. And nobody's going to roll over and just let us come in and take hold of that ring. The question now is, what will the Braves management do in the off season to improve the team for another run at the World Series next year? One thing that most baseball experts agree on is that the Braves have to address glaring deficiencies in the bullpen, second base, and two outfield positions. It's already talked that the team will address those shortcomings by trading Nagle and left field or Ryan Klesko. Pitcher Tom Glavins says it's a foregone conclusion that some moves will be made, but he adds that it's too soon to speculate on what they might be. Whether or not there's some change, I mean, I don't think you ever ever envision going through a winner without there being some changes. But, you know, I'm sure that when we show up in spring training next year, we're going to have another solid ball club, another team that's, you know, perfectly capable of winning our division in a legitimate chance of getting in the postseason. So, you know, I think that's going to be the case again next year and hopefully, you know, the results will be a little bit better.

And another shot at the postseason is all the fans and the players can ask for according to Smoltz, who says he's confident that any changes made by the team will make it a stronger club, capable of reaching the World Series in 1999. But if they fall short again, Smoltz says he will be proud to stand before the media on the last day of the season and patiently answer the same questions about the team's character. The one thing that makes me feel good is to know that I'm part of the best organization baseball. It's going to allow us a chance to win. And now they've locked up the core and they've been dedicated to do that. And aside from that, it's really all you can do is a player. You can only hope that when spring training rolls around, you've got the best chance to win or a great chance. You know, you're in and you're out. I would be glad to be in this position and take the responsibility of A, answering these type of questions or B, congratulations on winning it all. Smoltz and the rest of the team will renew their quest for a second world championship next March. That's when the players report spring training. I'm James R. Groves.

The Devil went down to Georgia. He was looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bag because he was way behind. He was willing to make a deal. When he came across this young man, so I'm on the fiddle and playing it hot. And the devil jumped up on a hickory stump and bought him it to be a watch. I can't get you to know it, but I'm a fiddle player too. And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you. Now, you played pretty good fiddle ball, but give the devil as you. I've got a fiddle of gold against your soul because I think I'm better at you. And come along now to America's Georgia where a group of poets takes over a night spot in town once a month to make sure that literature of the people, buy the people, and for the people not only survives, but thrives. Laurel O'Mac has our stone. Armed only with their mighty pens and passion-filled voices,

a rebel group of populist poets has invaded America's with the goal of liberating poetry from the high ivory towers of the Academy. They've issued a challenge to the English professors who guard the standards of literature. I say, come off your lofty perch and come out and rubble with street fighters. You know, let's go. Let's go ahead ahead if you're so damn good. Let the people be the judge. The poets stage monthly readings at a local bar, a properly plebeian setting for their cause. Writers read, or in some cases, emote their verses to an audience of everyday people. The best poet, decided by the audience, takes home $25 and the satisfaction that he has struck a blow for the cause of a democratic... These competitive poetry readings are called poetry slams. Marty Evans is the slam master. Ladies and gentlemen, take your places. Start your engines. We are getting close to beginning. The test begins. Evans has to find members of the audience who are qualified to rate tonight's entries on a scale from 1 to 10.

He takes volunteers from a surprisingly representative crowd of about 60 average shows, chic generation exers, housewives and retirees. For this job, Evans isn't looking for PhDs in Shakespearean studies. What do you believe qualifies you to be a judge of poetry? Let's say that words are my life. Words are your life. That's good. The contest begins once Evans has enlisted the judges and signed up the writers. Poet after poet takes the mic. Although this is a rebel event, many of the topics are familiar themes from English class. God, death and yes, love. Poet, Lorna Slayton. It's a thanksgiving I have for this man, or was he a saint? Because he can leave me in body. But what he has done from my spirit is free me. The Southern Poe's dungeons of death are gone. I leave the shackles behind. Though again, I run like a bachelor.

He will find me in the careening calls of the coyotes to the full moon. Do you hear them? Or are we them? There is lighter fare, too. Ernie Dennerd, a portrait sketch artist, pleased the judges with his spirited tale of the ant who gelously plotted to destroy the morale of Ellos, the elephant. The story of Erkle, the ant, who thought he'd look better in Ellos' pants. To improve his stature, he devised a plan to be little the elephant to the stature of an ant. So the ant said, oh, stew one day and said, oh, I wish I could figure out a way. Come up to the elephant's ear and feel his heart would happen to him. But he's so big and I'm so small. Why can't I do big and tall?

Dennerd's poetry is so popular that even with a heavy penalty for exceeding the three-minute time limit, it's first try at a poetry slam. Like many of the poets here, Dennerd has been writing for many years. This is the first time Dennerd's ever shared his poetry publicly. He says the response has overwhelmed him. Oh, I feel excited. I'm literally just ecstatic. The warm feeling of the crowd's adulation is one reason some poets like performing their work at a poetry slam. Poetry slams aren't unique to America. They got their start in the early 80s in Chicago, and they spread across the nation and even to Europe. Slams have been criticized by some academicians for promoting a pandering approach to poetry. Brian Ferguson Avery is a professor of English at Georgia Southwestern State University. He's a slammer himself, but he says some of his colleagues frown on it. Some of them do see that the competition aspect is might detract from the artistickness of it all. So they're kind of sneaky about it.

Well, they're going to get back to me and complain, but maybe so. The judges can see Tony says America's slam master, Marty Evans, who has competed nationally. For me, poetry has to be about feeling. It has to be about something that's down in your guts that has to come out, something down in your soul. So the way I feel is if I'm performing and I'm coming across to the people being lukewarm, I think the judges will reward me accordingly. In a capitalistic society, perhaps the true measure of whether the poetry slam has been successful in returning poetry to the people is in the cash register. Barone or Pat Span said the gatherings have been so successful that even though they're always on a Wednesday, the poetry slam is his top-grossing night of the month. We picked the slowest night of the week to try it out and it was good right from the start and it's just grown ever since. And usually it's difficult to get a seat in here about eight o'clock. So, you know, it hadn't been a mistake. It's been a great experience.

There's a lot of fun. And I have a good time and everybody who comes has a good time. Longevity is another measure of success and the competition scores well on that scale as well. Poetry slam at Pat's Place in America celebrates its one-year anniversary this month. I'm Laura Womack. I write for myself. He lies. He writes for the world I see pulling and dragging, beating us into a creative, frenzy, poetic, madness, challenging each to look both in and out, to find something, to do something, to be something he screams for the world to live. I start right by with my tail in the air. A landmark series premieres on GPTV and on public television stations around the country next week.

African in America, America's journey through slavery, tells the often painful story of how Africans and Europeans together created a new nation, even as they struggled bitterly over the very meaning of freedom. Tingen Flynn recently talked with Orlando Baguel, the series executive producer about this historic television event. The series is really the story of America's journey through slavery. And we begin the series at the first American Canal in the 1607 Chainsdown. And the series then ends at the eve of the Civil War, just before the country is moving towards conflict. We chose that time because we feel that it's very clear at that moment that the country is dividing very clearly north and much of that division has to do with the expansion of slavery, whether the country, the territory to the west will become slave or free. And so we feel that the conflict at the center of that conflict is this question of slavery. Will the future of the nation be a future with slavery? Or will it be without?

So we thought this was an ideal time in the series and in the epilogue. We talk about the ultimate end of slavery, which takes place for the past 1965. What are the major events or developments, if you like, in the history of American slavery, that the series charts? Well, the series is presented in four episodes. In the first episode, which we call the terrible transformation, we actually look at the slow move towards slavery in the early British American colonies. Most of the story takes place in the country of Virginia. What we do is we look at an American colony, a new American colony, where really in the beginning there is no, there are no formal laws that define slavery. In fact, the workers who come to America to work are considered servants and most of those workers are British citizens. The first Africans to arrive in a British colony come in 1619, actually when they arrive on the ship. Many of them come as slaves from the Caribbean, but once they arrive in Virginia, there are no formal laws to define their status as slaves, so many of them are considered servants.

And some, in fact, are able to use that servitude to find, to work their way out of servitude, become landowners. One in particular that we follow, Johnson, purchases land, gets his, and is out of slavery, and as a family, begin to a mass property in Virginia and then in Maryland. But over the course of his life and his family, his son's lives, you see a Virginia colony that slowly moves towards a slave-based economy, a slave-based kind of labor system, and with that come laws that begin to be slavery, and in fact makes slavery something that you pass on to your children in perpetuity. In the second program, we look at the American Revolution, and through the American Revolution, we do it through the lives of two men, one venture smith, a captured African, who comes to America, and also purchases his own freedom and a freedom of his wife and children, an extraordinary life, and then the life of George Washington, third son of a fourth-generation Virginia planter, who ultimately marries into quite a bit of wealth,

and becomes the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Forces, and ultimately the first president of the United States, two very extraordinary lies. But we look at them, because they are two examples of people becoming Americans at a time when they become the American nation on the United States of America. The third program then looks at America after the Revolution. In the wake of a Revolution, there's a sense of possibility that people feel that in fact the rhetoric and the language of a Revolution is something maybe can be realized, and we look at it in the nation's capital of Philadelphia, where in fact the large, newly freed black community begins to emerge. But as this community begins to move forward and to make its presence known in the city, and felt in the city, you see a white population is beginning to move away from it, and in fact because of the expanding territories west, and with the Louisiana Purchase and the invention of the cotton gin, you see a resurgence of an interest in slave labor and a more strident and committed America towards the continuation of slavery.

The fourth program looks at 1830 up to 1860, and in that program we're looking at in America where in fact there are maybe three visions that are fighting for the future of the nation. One vision sees the continuation of slavery not only moving west, but actually into the future of the nation. Another is a vision of a free soil movement that sees in fact the territory's west turning and becoming a territory available for free white labor, but has no place for free black or slave labor. And the final vision is that of the abolitionists who really actually see an end of slavery and the possibility of maybe a free and equal society for all the peoples in America. And we follow that, the battle of those visions through the last 30 years and up to the eve of the Civil War. How do you tell the story? We tell the story trying to bring characters and events to the history. This is dramatic historical storytelling, and to do that it's based around characters and events.

We draw on the plantation diaries and diaries and letters of whites as well as blacks to create characters within the series. So that you hear the history and the events through their voices. We also travel back to a lot of the locations where much of this took place. We film the series on three different continents in England, in Ghana, on the west coast of Africa, as well as throughout the south and the northeast. To try and create a visual treatment of the period, to give you a sense of the place and a feeling for the place and the environment that many of these stories took place. So we're using narratives, we're using people's stories, we're using their voices to try so that they in many ways are narrating the story. But at the same time, we're taking those voices and trying to bring you in touch with the world as they experienced it through the magic of filmmaking. This series is as much a history or a story of white folks as it is of black folks. Correct.

What impressions do you hope this series will leave with viewers? Well, like you said, this is a history that is as much about white folks as it is black folks. This is about an American history. And we felt very strongly from the very beginning that we were telling a story of the origins of the nation. Now we're looking at it from this vantage point of slavery and how slavery is a part of that larger story. But in fact, it's, we've worked very hard to make sure that in fact people see themselves in this story. And in fact, this is not just a story of my ancestors, but as a story of everyone's ancestors. It's about an America and about the origins of our country as a whole. Well, I'm De Baguel. Thank you very much. Thank you. Africans in America, America's journey through slavery premieres next Monday evening at 8 o'clock on Georgia Public Television. America's premier Celtic rock fusion band Seven Nations is performing this weekend at the Highland Games in Stone Mountain Park.

What separates this band from other pipe groups is their blend of traditional Scots Irish music and instruments with modern rock and roll. Seven Nations is made up of Kirk McLeod doing lead vocals, Neil Anderson on pipes, Strube on bass guitar and Ashton on drums. Earlier this week, three of the band members dropped into our studios to talk with music director Winston King about their music and what compelled them to include bagpipes in a rock and roll band. Why did you pick the bagpipes since you were, when you were so young? Well, it was kind of unavoidable actually. I first heard the pipes at a street fair when I was about five years old and from the day that I first heard pipes is outdoors.

It was a pipe band somewhere out of street fair and I just freaked out over the sound and I became obsessed with them immediately. What about you Kirk, when you started playing the pipes, what was your motivation? Well, I was just trying to think about, I haven't thought about that in a long time. I remember the first time I ever saw pipes, I was living in Kent and England when I was about eight or nine I saw a pipe band and I remember the power. I got right up real close and it was amazing sound, just the sheer power of the instrument especially when they're all playing together like that. It was sort of magnetism to it, you know, just drew you in. I was like, you know, every time I ever heard it ever since then until long after I started playing myself it just drew you in and just loved that power. I'm all you call yours to work down the mine from Scott, Land of South Wales.

Anyone who's heard you on stage or heard any of your records would know that it's more than just bagpipes, you also have bass, you also have drums and so there's a powerful rock influence in this. So where did you make that transition from folk to folk plus rock and roll? It was a very gradual accidental thing. I mean, we never sat down and said, okay, we're going to do this and do that. We're going to try to put together this kind of a format. It was never like that. Essentially Kirk and Struby put together a band in New York before I ever got involved. They were both living up in the city and Kirk was working with a producer at the time a guy by the name of Peter Wood. You probably should be telling the story of it. You guys originally came up with the idea of trying to integrate the Highland Pipes into a contemporary format, right? Yeah, I had written a couple of tunes that I could fit bagpipes into and I took them to Peter and we were actually putting together a demo for Polygram.

I was experimenting with taking the horn pipe grooves and mixing it with hip-hop grooves. Once we added the pipes to the rock band that we had going in New York City at the time, things started to take off. When you write a song, what sort of sound are you shooting for with the combination of all of these instruments? Well, that was one of the songs. Scream was one of the songs I was working with way back with Peter Wood in New York City.

Scream is really, we consider that kind of our genesis, actually musically, as far as our current concept goes. I was really shooting for having a bagpipe in an Iraq song that wasn't just a gimmick. The song is built around the bagpipe part. It's part of the skeleton, a lot of the song. Exactly. The song is built around the bagpipe one. It's not just a song that was written and then we said afterwards, oh, let's throw a bagpipe in there because it'll be cool. I wrote the pipe part first and then I wrote the song around it. Soon. Kirk McLeod, lead singer, guitarist, hyper.

Also, we have Struby, who plays the bass. One name, one instrument. Ashton, your drummer couldn't make it your day, and also we have Neil Anderson plays the pipes. Thanks very much for coming out. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And that's Georgia Gazette for this week. Our program was produced by Susanna Capeluto with additional help from Melissa Gray and Sid Hoskinson. I'm Tom Patton. I hope you'll join us again same time next week for Georgia Gazette on this Peach State Public Radio Station. Thanks for listening. Support for Georgia Gazette comes from West Point Stevens, the name behind Atelier Martex, Martex, Utica, Stevens, Lady Pepperel, and Vellix.

If you have comments or questions about this program, please write to Georgia Gazette, Peach State Public Radio, 260-14th Street, Northwest Atlanta, 303-18, or you can reach us online at www.gpp.org. Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of the Peach State Public Radio Network. This is for James, a guy I used to think he'd be a little bit better than me. This is for James, a guy I used to think he'd be a little bit better than me.

This is for James, a guy I used to think he'd be a little bit better than me. This is for James, a guy I used to think he'd be a little bit better than me. I used to think he'd be a little bit better than me.