The D.G. Martin Opinion Column
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – When Julian Pleasants died September 7 North Carolina lost one of its most important academic and popular historians. Pleasants grew up in Southern Pines, graduated from Davidson College, and earned masters and doctoral…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – Tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill and changing rules about the Davidson College president’s religion pulled both schools into the headlines last week. These topics remind how hard it is for some of us to…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – What really makes for a good barbecue restaurant? Barbecue expert John Shelton Reed and I have different ideas. I spoke with him about the recent death of Wilber Shirley, the legendary founder of…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – Who is responsible for last month’s jam up in the Suez Canal? Could it be a North Carolinian? The damages to the quarter-mile long container ship, Ever Given, which ran aground in the…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – A few years ago, I ignored a friend’s question about whether there was a risk of violence to Asians in North Carolina. That was a mistake. My friend, Don Mar, grew up in…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – Cherokee is in the news again this month. All about the name of an automobile, a popular Jeep product. But for North Carolinians, the Cherokee term brings up a whole special set of…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – “Life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020,” according to last week’s news reports. For males the average life expectancy is now 75.1 years…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – Do you want your congressional representative to be a “workhorse” or a “show horse?” In the recently released fourth revised edition of his classic “The Congressional Experience: An Institution Transformed,” David Price writes…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – Last week the Raleigh City Council removed the historic designation of Wakestone, the former home of Josephus Daniels. That action is just one more reminder of North Carolina’s and the nation’s struggle to…
By D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – One of North Carolina’s important public intellectuals has stepped down. What is a public intellectual and who stepped down? One definition of the word from Collins Dictionary is “an intellectual, often a noted specialist in a…