1. ae
THE SUNDAY REPUBLICAN JANUARY 27, 2008
ON BROADWAY “New Jerusalem,”
SECTION
starring Richard Easton and Jeremy
H
Strong, gets 4½ stars. 2H
rts& ntertainment
Old soul
Waterbury’s William Davis,
now in his golden years, still
spreading gospel to the masses
tet was being asked to play in
BY TRACY SIMMONS
churches.
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
“We traveled to Virginia, and
For 56 years William Davis, South Carolina and all over
82, of Waterbury, has lived and North Carolina,” Davis re-
breathed gospel music, and he called.
remembers every second of it It was during his years as a
like it was yesterday. singer for The Golden Stars that
“Well,” he began, lounging in he met his wife, Doris.
a recliner at his younger broth- “I was singing in her home-
er’s house in Wolcott, “there town,” of Bertha, N.C., he said.
was a bunch of us sitting around The couple recently marked
and talking and singing a little their 62nd wedding anniversary
bit, just messing around and I and have one son together,
decided I was going to organize Archie.
a quartet.” In 1951, The Golden Stars
The year was 1943. were booked at Old Zion Baptist
“We were named The Golden Church in Waterbury. One year
Stars of Elizabeth City, N.C.,” later, Davis decided to move
he said. here.
T.J. KIRKPATRICK REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
Soon their music was being
William ‘Bill’ Davis, founder of The Golden Stars, stands in The Big A Gospel Headquarters in Waterbury during a recent open mic
aired on the radio, and the quar- See DAVIS, Page 3H
night in honor of the 56 years he has been performing gospel music.
out of
nothing
at all
BY TRACEY O’SHAUGHNESSY
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
The Japanese have a word for suffering.
Or, more precisely, one for enduring it.
“Gaman” means “enduring the seemingly
unbearable with patience and dignity,” a facil-
ity of particular use to 120,000 Japanese-
Americans interned in concentration camps in
the United States from 1942 to 1946. The
shameful story of the incarceration of Japan-
ese-Americans in bleak, primitive barracks is
one of those chilling reminders of bureaucrat-
ic over-reach that still manages to appall. But
like all stories of insuperable suffering, it is as
intriguing as it is harrowing.
“I lost my identity,” a Japanese woman,
identified as family #10710, wrote later. “I
lost my privacy and dignity.”
A magnificent new exhibit at the William
Benton Museum of Art in Storrs reminds us
that if dignity was eroded, grace was not. A
marvelous testament to the power of the hu-
man spirit and the lust for aesthetic invention,
“The Art of Gaman” presents arts and crafts
made by Japanese and Japanese-Americans
interned during World War II. This astonish-
ing exhibit features nearly 200 objects made
From the exhibit, ‘The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American
from little more than the scraps and trash
Internment Camps 1942-1946’: Himeko Fukuhara and Kazuko Matsumoto, bird
found by detainees. pins, scrap wood and paint, National Japanese American Historical Society.
COURTESY OF THE WILLIAM BENTON MUSEUM OF ART
See INTERNMENT, Page 4H