Centos 7 file permission problem

[lists at lazygranch.com]

I'm setting up a web server on a Centos 7 VPS. I'm relatively sure I
have the firewalls set up properly since I can see my browser requests
in the access and error log. That said, I have file permission problem. 

nginx 1.12.2
Linux servername 3.10.0-693.5.2.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Oct 20 20:32:50 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
 

nginx.conf (with comments removed for brevity and my domain name remove
because google)
-------
user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile            on;
    tcp_nopush          on;
    tcp_nodelay         on;
    keepalive_timeout   65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;

    include             /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type        application/octet-stream;

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com;

        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

    server {
        listen       443 ssl  http2;
        server_name  mydomain.com www.mydomain.com;
        ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;
        root         /usr/share/nginx/html/mydomain.com/public_html;

ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

        location / {
            root   /usr/share/nginx/html/mydomain.com/public_html;
            index  index.html index.htm;
        }
#
        error_page 404 /404.html;
            location = /40x.html {
        }
#
        error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
            location = /50x.html {
        }
    }

}

I have firefox set up with no cache and do not save history.
-------------------------------------------------------------
access log:

mypi - - [20/Dec/2017:07:46:44 +0000] "GET /index.html HTTP/2.0" 403 169
"-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101
Firefox/52.0" "-"

myip - - [20/Dec/2017:07:48:44 +0000] "GET /index.html
HTTP/2.0" 403 169 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0)
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0" "-"
-------------------------------
error log:

2017/12/20 07:46:44 [error] 10146#0: *48 open() "/usr/share/nginx/html/mydomain.com/public_html/index.html" failed (13: Permission denied), client: myip, server: mydomain.com, request: "GET /index.html HTTP/2.0", host: "mydomain.com"
2017/12/20 07:48:44 [error] 10146#0: *48 open() "/usr/share/nginx/html/mydomain.com/public_html/index.html" failed (13: Permission denied), client: myip, server: mydomain.com, request: "GET /index.html HTTP/2.0", host: "mydomain.com"


Directory permissions:
For now, I made eveything 755 with ownership nginx:nginx I did chmod
and chown with the -R option

/etc/nginx:
drwxr-xr-x.  4 nginx nginx    4096 Dec 20 07:39 nginx

/usr/share/nginx:
drwxr-xr-x.   4 nginx nginx    33 Dec 15 08:47 nginx

/var/log:
drwx------. 2 nginx  nginx    4096 Dec 20 07:51 nginx
--------------------------------------------------------------
systemctl status nginx
● nginx.service - The nginx HTTP and reverse proxy server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2017-12-20 04:21:37 UTC; 3h 37min ago
  Process: 10145 ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 9620 (nginx)
   CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
           ├─ 9620 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx
           └─10146 nginx: worker process


Dec 20 07:18:33 servername systemd[1]: Reloaded The nginx HTTP and reverse proxy server.
--------------------------------------------------------------

ps aux | grep nginx
root      9620  0.0  0.3  71504  3848 ?        Ss   04:21   0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx
nginx    10146  0.0  0.4  72004  4216 ?        S    07:18   0:00 nginx: worker process
root     10235  0.0  0.0 112660   952 pts/1    S+   08:01   0:00 grep ngin

-----------------------------------
firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-all
public (active)
  target: default
  icmp-block-inversion: no
  interfaces: eth0
  sources: 
  services: ssh dhcpv6-client http https
  ports: 
  protocols: 
  masquerade: no
  forward-ports: 
  source-ports: 
  icmp-blocks: 
  rich rules: