Everything old is new again.
The City of Greensboro is reminding residents of that fact with a series of history-focused events taking place this month that celebrate everything from the Revolutionary War to the city’s own museum history.
Three separate recent announcements from the city highlight programs that invite residents to step back in time – whether by listening to a local historian talk about the people who built the Greensboro History Museum, watching Revolutionary War soldiers reenact the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, or honoring one of the legendary figures of that battle.
The first event will take place on Friday, March 13, when the Greensboro History Museum hosts a Lunch and Learn program featuring famed local historian Gayle Hicks Fripp.
The free program will be held from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Greensboro History Museum at 130 Summit Ave.
Fripp previously served as the museum’s assistant director, and her talk will focus on the women who helped shape the museum and the institution’s 100-year history of connecting with the Greensboro community.
She’ll be joined by former Greensboro History Museum curators Linda Evans and Susan Joyce Webster.
The program is part of the museum’s current exhibit: “GHM100: Treasures. Legacies. Remix,” which explores the museum’s century-long history, its collections and its role in the community.
The event is free, and guests are invited to bring their own lunch or order delivery to the museum.
The following day, attention will shift from museum exhibits to living history.
On Saturday, March 14, and Sunday, March 15, the City of Greensboro and the National Park Service will host a reenactment of the Revolutionary War Battle of Guilford Courthouse along with other living-history programs.
Events will take place at Country Park, located at 3905 Nathanael Greene Dr., and at the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park at 2332 New Garden Road.
The Battle of Guilford Courthouse, fought in 1781, was one of the key battles of the Revolutionary War’s Southern Campaign and took place in what’s now Greensboro.
All programs associated with the reenactment weekend are free and open to the public.
The weekend’s activities will also include a special ceremony honoring Peter Francisco – a Revolutionary War soldier often remembered for his role in several engagements during the war. That commemorative observance honoring Francisco will take place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 14, at the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park.
The ceremony is being organized by the Peter Francisco Society and it’s intended to recognize Francisco’s life and legacy, including his connection to the events that unfolded in the Greensboro area during the American Revolution.
According to city officials, Francisco is associated with the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and the broader Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War.
Greensboro Mayor Marikay Abuzuaiter said the upcoming anniversary of the Declaration of Independence makes programs like these especially meaningful.
“As our nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to reflect on the individuals and events that shaped our history,” Abuzuaiter said in the city’s announcement of the event. “The City is honored to support initiatives that promote historical awareness, cultural understanding, and civic engagement.”
Travis Bowman, the president of the Peter Francisco Society and a descendant of Francisco, said the ceremony will highlight the continuing importance of the Revolutionary War figure.
“It is a tremendous honor to have the support of the city for this momentous commemoration ceremony for the ‘Giant of the Revolution,’” Bowman said in the city’s release. “Two hundred fifty years later, every American continues to benefit from his sacrifice and we owe a lasting debt of gratitude for the freedom secured through his bravery.”
Information about the reenactment weekend and other programs being held at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park is available on the National Park Service website.
Taken together, the events offer Greensboro residents a chance to experience history from several different angles – through scholarship, storytelling and reenactment – and they all serve as reminders that some of the most important chapters in American history unfolded right here in what’s now little old Guilford County.
Great job city leaders! I applaud this commemoration. Let it serve as a reminder of our American values.
those brave patriots fought against tyranny just as we still do today in our battle against the deep state. what a great way to remind our citizens that the fight is not over and that these brave souls put their lives on the line. this is where we came from!
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Well said.
Government is the repository of power, and as we know, power corrupts. Government’s craving for ever more money and power is never satisfied.
The Deep State, or Permanent State, is its essential identity. “Democracy” is just the Potemkin Village they show us, and most never see past it.
Considering what we have today in Guilford County, Raleigh, & Washington; along with many other states in the Union, these brave patriots fought in vain. Not totally, as our Republic set an example for freedom from Colonial times thru the 1950s. Why do you think that people want to live here? Now, the Left has virtually destroyed our Republic.
The next time the Social.., uh Democrat Party (the DSP) gains control of the government, it will be over. Even now, electronic surveillance has smothered our privacy and our freedoms. Digital ID and Digital Currency will seal the deal.
No Kings!
I would like to see schools organize class trips, even though it’s a Saturday, to at least try to teach our children about TRUE American history.
well they also have that free program today during school hours at the history museum im sure some kiddos will be attending
My grandma used to take her Girl Scouts to participate in this event every March.
Conservatives have no sense of Truth of history. Last I heard they wanted to remove all the negative history around our early years of American’s history of slavery and racism. They want history to see the Capitol Riot as no big deal, they even removed online content about Jackie Robinson’s military history for fear it was ‘woke’ and removed online content about ‘Code Talkers’ because it talked about diversity.
You support an administration that doesn’t respect history.
Sorry, Prof, you are using hearsay as proof.
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You’re right Miller, this is a farrago of unsubstantiated falsehoods.
“Professor” or “Chris” or whatever name he’s using, believes that “If I thunk it, it must be troo..”
He thunk all this – so it must be troo…!
LOL indeed .
There you go using them durn fancy words again. Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother, but I couldn’t stand anymore. I had to look up “farrago”. I thot it meant a far way to go, but I wuz wrong….again. I need to do something productive for a change, but I couldn’t think of anything like that I wanted to do.
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Glad to be adding to your vocabulary, Miller.
You’re welcome!
Weird. I gave actual examples of how the Trump administration has attempted to ‘erase’ history. Can you breathe with your head that deep in the sand?
who decides what’s TRUE: the conquerers !
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You’re right, Markl.
The victors write the history books.
C’mon Alan, really you do know that GCS already teach our children all the history they need to know. They take the children to Skips downtown honey hole at taxpayers expense, isn’t that enough. (Please note LOTS of dripping sarcasm here)
Oh no! Did the kids learn about the history of how Greensboro was center of an important part of the civil rights movement that overcame generations of racism in this country?
No Chris I was referring to the fact that the county Taxpayers pay for each student who goes through skips money pit, while a few blocks down the street is an awesome museum full of the total history of Greensboro and it’s absolutely FREE. If it’s about educating the children WHY not bus them there. Skips money pit should be free for school children as their parents have paid for it many times over with the money skip and Earl have grifted from the taxpayers
Whaaaat ?? No response from Chris OMG
Fine. Oh no! Did the kids learn about the history of how Greensboro was the center of an important part of the civil rights movement at public expense?!
That better? Weird how much you guys claim to hate my responses but then get upset with I miss a response. LMAO
I’m so happy that I’m being celebrated.
I have to wonder what those Patriots we are honoring with this reenactment would think if they were to suddenly reappear and walk among the city today. Citizens fighting the tyranny of local, state, and so-called representative government whose politicians curtail services and protections guaranteed all Americans by closing the government for political gain or giving themselves raises. Or the increase in property assessments to raise taxes not for the greater good but to give money for incentive packages to businesses as bribes to stay or to pay for expenditures voters would never approve. Isn`t that a bit like taxation without honest representation? It is good to remember history, even to mark its important events, but it is even better to learn from it so the same mistakes are not repeated by later generations.
ditto jtui8
Will the British still win the battle?
gee i wonder who will win this time. the suspense is killing me.
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They might have won in a technical sense, but it crippled their war effort in the South. As a contemporaneous MP in the House of Commons said, “Another “victory” such as this and we are undone!”. I think his name was Fox, but I’m not sure.
It was a Pyrrhic Victory.
just wondering, how do british people view the revolution? i mean you must be glad at the outcome but do you ever feel weird knowing that england once owned this land and was at war with our people those 250 years ago? how many times do you think about this on a daily basis?
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The majority looked on the war as a relatively minor conflict at the time it was being fought, since we had bigger fish to fry then. There was a great deal of sympathy for “our American cousins”, especially among the common British people but also in Parliament. There just wasn’t the same kind of enmity towards the Colonists as there was for the French, for example.
Maybe that’s why the Brits lost; their heart just wasn’t in it.
My elderly History master at Leeds Grammar School said that it was considered more of a policing action to put down a rebellion than a war.
Today’s Britons don’t think about it much at all, but us older ones were steeped in the pride that we once ruled about a third of the World, in population and land (since you brought up land). The British Empire will never see another empire that will even come close. “The Sun never set…” We had just secured the second biggest country in the World – Canada – by defeating the French, and the loss of a strip of land on the East Coast of North America didn’t trouble anyone much at the time. Canada was considered much more important.
Younger Brits have been brainwashed to feel shame at the Imperial achievement. The Left has gained complete control of the education system over the last few decades, with the result that younger Britons feel that they, and Britain itself, should be made to feel pain and shame for our history.
I demur.
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PS
A lot of the hardline policies imposed on the Colonists were at the insistence of the King, George III, who was going mad from syphilis, and who was German.
If the British King had been British and sane, the Revolutionary War might never had happened.
how interesting. it’s a shame the young brits dont share your appreciation
austin, snipers scattered along new garden rd, using hit n run tactics, inflicted heavy casualties on the tories as they approached the courthouse according to a book i have by a guilford college professor
not ‘swampfox’
austin, snipers along new garden rd using hit n run tactics inflicted heavy casualties on the tories on their way to the courthouse according to my book by guilford college professor
nathanael greene – our SWAMPFOX – austin
He is buried in Savannah.
miller thnx. i met the czecho architect & wife @ the battle’s memorial he designed just before they left town 4 their home boston & gave him the recent publish (read) book about the battle by 2 (duke,state, carolina) professors that had the inscription on the pergola roof he struggled to find. smith@prescott half block from my house (not a unit) go @ midday to see the inscription – powerful stuff