Paul Green Foundation Grant

Paul Green Foundation Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Paul Green Foundation
Amount: US $500 - US $2,500
Last Updated: June 11, 2025

Summary

The Paul Green Foundation, established in 1982, continues the legacy of playwright Paul Green by supporting North Carolina 501(c)(3) organizations. It funds dramatic productions and projects that promote human rights, racial equality, and the arts. The foundation encourages proposals that creatively intertwine these themes, reflecting Green's commitment to social change through literature and performance. Notably, Green's works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "In Abraham's Bosom," highlight the struggles for education and justice faced by marginalized communities.

Overview

About the Foundation The Paul Green Foundation was established in 1982 to perpetuate the vision of playwright and activist Paul Green, whose commitment to the arts and human rights continues today through the mission of the Foundation. In 2007 the Paul Green Foundation established two funds at the Triangle Community Foundation and now gives the majority of its grants through these funds. Grants The Paul Green Foundation, named for the famed North Carolina author, humanitarian and civil rights activist, seeks grant proposals from North Carolina 501(c)(3) organizations to support Dramatic Productions, Projects and Programs or Publications that reflect the life’s work and values of Paul Green. Proposals should focus on efforts to uphold basic human rights and racial equality; dramatic art; and literary projects, which could include the promotion and preservation of Green’s own literary works. Green’s Accomplishments and Values Paul Green (1894-1981), born and raised on a North Carolina Harnett County cotton farm, learned the value of hard work and the love of music and literature in his family home.  With these skills and passions he went to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1916 to study philosophy and drama and began what would become a long life of service to others less fortunate than he, and a life devoted to literature and music. In 1927, Green received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his Broadway play, In Abraham’s Bosom that depicted the tragic life of a struggling Black man who wanted his people to have access to education.  In 1941, he wrote the Broadway play for Richard Wright’s powerful novel Native Son, dramatizing the oppressive effect of racism on the Black population in 1930’s America. Paul Green lived his long life with compassion and action for the people whose lives were rife with inequality.  He used his powerful pen to affect social change with the writing of a one-act play, “Hymn to the Rising Sun” that challenged the right of the State to continue the inhuman and cruel chain gangs.  He was firmly opposed to the death penalty and stood as a “Lone Vigil” on nights of executions. Green may be perhaps best known for founding the American Outdoor Historical Drama movement in 1937 when he wrote The Lost Colony.  This epic play – still in production –  brilliantly dramatizes the courage, the depth of integrity, and the devotion to freedom that are the hallmarks of the American character. Green went on to write sixteen more such dramas for large outdoor venues from Texas to Virginia, dramatizing significant events in the life of the nation, performed in amphitheatres on or near the sites where the events actually occurred. A former professor of Philosophy and Drama at UNC-Chapel Hill, Green was the author of Broadway plays, Hollywood feature films, novels, poems, short stories and scholarly essays.  His writing, more often than not, combined his literary genius with the stories of people who had experienced great hardship and loss in their lives.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Eligibility: North Carolina 501(c)(3)