Paul Eliot Green was a humanist, a playwright, and the first white writer to create plays about African Americans. He was also a poet, short-story author, novelist, radio and screenplay writer, lyricist, composer, essayist, and social reformer.

Born in North Carolina in 1894 to William Archibald Green and Betty Lorine Byrd Green, Paul Green farmed and read as he plowed. He saw Southern poverty, cultural deprivation, racism, superstitions, religious fanaticism, and bad health; he condemned racial discrimination and capital punishment.

At The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, young Paul underwent surgery for osteomyelitis in his right arm; during recovery, he learned to pitch with his left arm. Ambidexterity helped him later as a professional. Paul was thirteen when his mother suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. With only one shoe, he ran for the doctor, but he was too late. Green hurried for the rest of his life, to compensate.

Green bought a Stradivarius violin for $2.45 and took a correspondence course. The woods became his practice room. His love and knowledge of music helped him create symphonic dramas, lyrics, and melodies. He graduated from Buie’s Creek Academy in 1914. To save for college, he farmed, taught school, served as a principal, and pitched for the Lillington minor league baseball team. In 1916 he entered the University of North Carolina and, surprisingly, taught English to his peers. He majored in philosophy and studied drama with Frederick Koch and his famous Playmakers. The first drama that Paul ever saw produced was his own.

Green entered World War I in 1917. Fearing death, he self-published Trifles of Thought, a book of poems, before his departure. Serving with the British engineers, he advanced to second lieutenant. He saw intense action in both France and Belgium and suffered from shell shock; afterward, he always avoided violence and considered military action immoral. As a result of his service, he developed a fondness: evaporated milk—especially with corn flakes, his other favorite food.

In 1919 he returned to the University of North Carolina, to his philosophy major, and to his work with Koch. Green found his future wife, Betty Lorine Byrd, among Koch’s Playmakers.

After doing graduate work at Cornell University, he returned to the University of North Carolina as an assistant professor. He taught creative writing, philosophy, and English.

Green wrote of the South in the South and used characters who spoke the Southern dialect. His first full-length play—the first of seven Broadway productions—was In Abraham’s Bosom. This story of struggle between African American and white stepbrothers won for him a Pulitzer Prize in 1927.

In 1930 Green went to Hollywood and wrote and adapted screenplays, like State Fair, from Phil Stong’s book, for Will Rogers and Cabin in the Cotton, from Harry Harrison Kroll’s novel, for Bette Davis. Green also began combining music, entertainment, dance, social statements, and history in “symphonic drama.” The longest-running is his 1937 The Lost Colony in North Carolina. Green wrote some fifteen other outdoor dramas for Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, and Texas and often designed the amphitheater and the landscaping in which they were performed.

Green served the University of North Carolina until 1944, when he retired to write. His awards include two Guggenheim Fellowships, three Freedom Foundation Medals, and nine honorary university degrees. In 1978 the University of North Carolina named its new theater after him; the first play there was Native Son, his 1940-1941 collaboration with Richard Wright. In 1979 the General Assembly named him State Dramatist Laureate.

Green’s work continued until the day before his death in 1981. He died in the guest bedroom of his home and was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery near the Paul Green Theater. During his lifetime, Green had protested capital punishment, started the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and the Institute of Outdoor Drama, loaned money to the needy, and spoke against violence and for education. He received posthumous induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame (1996) and the Musical Theatre Hall of Fame at New York University (1993). In his honor, his family established the Paul Green Foundation to foster creative writing, human rights, and international amity.