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Access to audio materials may require production of listening copies.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Alice D. Boyle Recordings of Demus Green #20127, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Acquisitions information unknown (Acc. 20210127.2)

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Anne Wells and Meredith Kite, December 2020

Encoded by: Anne Wells, December 2020

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Archival processing of the Alice D. Boyle Recordings of Demus Green was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• African Americans--Folklore.
• African Americans--South Carolina--Interviews.
• Anecdotes--South Carolina.
• Boyle, Alice D.
• Charleston (S.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Folklore--South Carolina.
• Green, Demus, 1913-1976.
• Gullahs--South Carolina.
• Humerous stories, American--South Carolina.
• Interviews.
• Legends--South Carolina.
• Oral histories.
• Sea Islands Creole dialect.
• Sea Islands--Folklore.
• South Carolina--Folklore.
• Storytellers--South Carolina--Interviews.
• Storytelling--South Carolina.
• Tales--South Carolina.

• Southern Folklife Collection Field Notes #30025

Demus Green (1913-1976) was part of the Black community in the southern Lowcountry region of South Carolina, where he was known for his storytelling as well as for being an assistant leader at his local church. He was born in 1913 at Combahee Plantation, Whitehall, S.C., a large plantation located on the Combahee River that was owned at the time by the white DuPont family. Demus Green was the son of Solomon Green and Isabella Green, and husband to Elizabeth Graham Green (married 1932). Demus Green worked for the white plantation owners of Combahee Plantation, which at the time was managed by Charles G. Turner. When Deums Green was about thirty years old, he moved to Charleston, S.C. to work at Hugh Lane's family bank. Soon after arriving in Charleston, Hugh Lane (1914-2005), a third generation white banker, hired Demus Green to work for him and his wife, Beverly Glover Lane, at their residence in Charleston, S.C. Alice D. Boyle, a white University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, recorded Demus Green in Charleston, S.C., from 1971 to 1975. Boyle, who is from Isle of Palms, S.C., met Demus Green through her childhood friend, Kathy Lane, the daughter of Hugh Lane. Alice D. Boyle published her recordings of Demus Green on the private issue label, Globe Recording Studio, and also wrote a UNC term paper, titled "Uh Yeddy Um, but Uh Ent Shum...When They Gone, They Gone: The Stories of Demus Green", on Demus Green and his storytelling.

Audio recordings of Demus Green, an African American storyteller living in Charleston, S.C., telling tales, anecdotes, stories about animals, and legends in the Gullah language. Demus Green was part of the Black community in the southern Lowcountry region of South Carolina, where he was known for his storytelling as well as for being an assistant leader at his local church. Demus Green was born in 1913 at the Combahee Plantation, Whitehall, S.C., a large plantation located on the Combahee River that was owned at the time by the white DuPont family. When Demus Green was around thirty years old, he moved to Charleston, S.C. to work for Hugh Lane (1914-2005), a third generation white banker. Alice D. Boyle, a white University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, recorded Demus Green in Charleston, S.C., from 1971 to 1975. Boyle, who is from Isle of Palms, S.C., met Demus Green through her childhood friend, Kathy Lane, the daughter of Hugh Lane. The collection contains dubs of Alice D. Boyle's recordings of Demus Green on 1/4" open reel audio. The dubs were made from an audiodisc of Boyle's recordings of Demus Green, which were originally released on the private issue label, Globe Recording Studio. The collection also contains a copy of Boyle's UNC term paper, titled "Uh Yeddy Um, but Uh Ent Shum...When They Gone, They Gone: The Stories of Demus Green", on Demus Green and his storytelling.

• Audiotape (FT-864-870)
• Field Notes (Folder 475), Southern Folklife Collection Field Notes #30025