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Speech draft 11--9.17.04
INTRODUCTION
Why are we here today? What is to be gained by spending a day in these
uncomfortable seats discussing how we remember Reconstruction at Carolina and the
legacy of Cornelia Phillips Spencer? What is at stake?
We all have our reasons for participating today, but I know that I am here to help
build a movement for social justice and honesty in the way the university
remembers and honors its history. I also know that real change never occurred simply
because of a conference, so my hope is that this gathering will encourage you and others
to get more involved in changing UNC. Therefore, let me spend a moment suggesting a
way for us to think together about why we are here.
In a general sense, many of us are here today because there is work to do. As my
colleague Bruce Baker wrote in a letter to Chancellor Moeser last spring, “Reconstruction
was an attempt to transform a society built on slavery into a society built on freedom.”
This conference is an acknowledgment by the Chancellor that the social transformation
begun more than 140 years ago is still unfinished at UNC.
Much has been said this morning about the history of Reconstruction, but let me
briefly summarize the entire 140-year history to try to give us a common historical
framework. Reconstruction itself lasted only a few years, before African Americans and
their allies were brutally suppressed. Yet it introduced ideas and proposed changes that
remain inspirational to anyone who believes in equality and civil rights. As we have
heard this morning, the attempted democratic reforms of the Republicans were crushed
by a vicious white supremacy campaign that featured leaders associated with the
university, including Cornelia Phillips Spencer. This conservative backlash ushered in
Jim Crow, an era of lynching, disenfranchisement, economic exploitation, and
segregation. Every challenge to Jim Crow was crushed until the 1960s when African
Americans again rose up and, at great personal cost, brought an end to many aspects of
Jim Crow. This is often called the Second Reconstruction. Nevertheless, the
fundamental patterns of inequality established over the course of generations did not end.
Particularly in the areas of education, criminal justice, housing, healthcare, and
employment, institutional racism still limits and denies black freedom. The Second
Reconstruction is both incomplete and under attack. Once again, a conservative backlash
threatens democratic progress.
What this means for UNC can perhaps best be understood by reflecting on a
confrontation that took place not long ago in front of South Building.
On October 12, 2000, Chancellor James Moeser called on a University Day
gathering to “remember the history of this great institution,” particularly the
“critical moments--points in time where the University took great strides that
changed its culture or its character by orders of magnitude.” He continued:
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Certainly, the foundation in 1793 was such a moment. But so was the second
opening of Chapel Hill in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction. One
woman’s tenacity -- Cornelia Phillips Spencer -- kept the flame of light and
liberty alive. Her remarkable campaign, marked by newspaper columns and visits
to key state leaders, resulted finally in an appropriation from a destitute state in
1875. On the day that word came from Raleigh of the action of the General
Assembly, she climbed the stairs of the South Building behind me and rang the
bell, signaling that this mighty University would not die.
Suddenly, a chant erupted from a group of black university workers and their
supporters. Hesitant at first, the chant grew loud and persistent: “WHO ARE WE?
UE! COME TO THE TABLE UNC!” Their banner called out to the gathered
dignitaries, students, and faculty: “BE LIKE DR. KING. SUPPORT NC PUBLIC
SERVICE WORKERS UNIION.” While the Chancellor called on UNC’s historical
memory of Cornelia Phillips Spencer and the 1875 reopening, black workers called upon
a different memory. Their banner linked them to the great historical freedom struggles of
the African American people. Their discordant voices recalled traditions of black
resistance that challenged the story recited by Chancellor Moeser.
Making these statements does not make Chancellor Moeser a racist, but the history
he learned when he arrived at Carolina stands revealed today as a racist myth that
has obscured the university’s close connection with slavery and white supremacy.
Our need to re-write this history and resolve the tension between UNC’s rhetoric and its
reality is the reason we are here today.
***
HISTORY OF REDEEMERS AND SPENCER
This brings us to the specific question at hand: Should UNC honor the contributions
of women by celebrating the overthrow of Reconstruction and the reopening of the
university by white supremacists in 1875? These two events are enshrined in the iconic
story of the ringing of the bell in March,1875, by Cornelia Phillips Spencer.
Those who have been following the debate over the Bell Award will notice that my
framing of this question does not place Cornelia Phillips Spencer at the center.
What has become abundantly clear over five years of research is that we cannot
understand Spencer as an isolated individual. Focused on narrowly, Spencer does not
have a historical role. She is simply an individual. We may judge her harshly or
generously, but as long as the debate is simply over what kind of person she was, we will
miss the larger picture.
outline Republican reforms, including unc co ed and black branch of the university
at university, Fisk Brewer and poor white kids and breaking the color line
Spencer was an important leader in a vicious and reactionary movement organized
by the Democratic Party to suppress black freedom and biracial politics in North
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Carolina during Reconstruction. Although propagandists for this movement framed it
as a white supremacy crusade to “redeem” North Carolina from “Negro domination,” the
true aim of the movement was to restore the power of the gentry, the former slave owning
elite, over all of the working people, white and black. The success of the Redeemer
Movement ushered in an era of white supremacy in North Carolina that culminated in the
disfranchisement of African American voters in 1900 and the institutionalization of
segregation known as Jim Crow. Most of the democratic reforms of the Republican
coalition were undone for another 85 years.
The suppression of black freedom and popular democracy and the reinstatement of
white supremacy and elite rule was the essence of the overthrow of Reconstruction.
The slave owning gentry controlled UNC before the Civil War, and these men
provided much of the leadership for the Democratic Party and the Redeemer
Movement, including the Ku Klux Klan, during Reconstruction. During the two
years when the Republicans controlled state government and the university, the
Redeemers waged a relentless campaign to undermine and repress the biracial coalition
that had ousted them from power. An important part of that campaign was to destroy the
control of the university by the Republicans, even if that meant forcing UNC to close and
throwing Chapel Hill into depression. Cornelia Phillips Spencer, as a resident of Chapel
Hill and closely connected to the Democratic Party elite through Governor Vance and
others, played the crucial insider role in the Redeemer attack on the university. She was
given complete access to the Democratic Party newspapers and to other important
statewide publications. She constantly consulted with the Democratic Party leadership.
And the passion, insider knowledge, and biting sarcasm of her pen made a major
contribution to the propaganda campaign of the Democrats. This public relations
campaign was not only designed to encourage a boycott of the university by well to do
families, but also to discourage the legislature from providing funds to the university. In
this way, UNC was financially strangled. At the same time, the Ku Klux Klan invaded
Chapel Hill, intimidating black and white Republicans and harassing the university
faculty. Klan violence throughout the Piedmont of North Carolina also did much to
destroy the fragile biracial Republican coalition and also resulted in the refusal of
cautions northern investors to extend credit to the state. In addition to public relations and
Klan intimidation, political leaders like Vance and Graham patiently maneuvered to bring
about the overthrow of the Republicans politically. Eventually, the combined impact of
the Redeemer attacks and the financial crisis of the post war era resulted in the overthrow
of Reconstruction. In 1870, the Republicans regained control of the legislature. With no
hope of legislative support, the trustees closed the university officially in February, 1871.
It was not until 1874, however, that the Democrats were able to replace the Board of
Trustees with new members committed to their program, and it was not until 1875 that
the necessary funding was gained for reopening the university. When UNC did reopen,
there is no question that its destiny would be controlled by the leaders of the white
supremacy movement. At the head of the BOT was William A. Graham, grand titan of
the white supremacy movement. In addition, on the Executive Committee, was Paul
Cameron, formerly the largest slave owner in North Carolina, and Col. William L.
Saunders, leader of the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan.
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At her death, in 1908, although she had then been living in Cambridge,
Massachusetts for many years, the newspapers of the state were full of eulogies
proclaiming her role as one of the leading Redeemers of the state and the university.
George T. Winston, president of UNC from 1891-1896, made the powerful claim that in
“the darker period of reconstruction,” Spencer led the campaign to close the Republican
university and redeem North Carolina. He said, “To her, mainly, was due the revival of
the University in 1875; and to her largely was due the overthrow of the carpet-bagger and
his exodus from the State.” In another commentary, Mrs. Winston noted that Spencer
“wrote and spoke and prayed unceasingly for the overthrow of the foul gang that were
polluting the University halls and for the restoration of the University to its own. Her
labors, her prayers were answered.”
As a historian, I think the Winstons exaggerated Spencer’s role, but that is not the
fundamental issue before us as we consider the Bell Award. Historians, biographers,
and concerned individuals can debate forever about what kind of person Spencer was and
the relative importance of her racism or her good works. And we should, if we really
want to do justice to her as a person and want to understand our history. But at some
point, we have to set nuance, complexity, and debate aside, and we have to take a stand
on the issues that confront us. That is called leadership. In this case, it is enough to
know that the reopening of the university was part and parcel of the suppression of black
freedom and biracial politics. There should be no Bell Award that celebrates such a
reopening. And in this day and age, understanding that Spencer was a leader in a
reactionary white supremacy movement should be enough to remove her name from any
university award, but particularly one that is meant to promote “fairness and diversity.?”
On the other hand, the democratic impulse that led to the creation of the Bell Award,
should be encouraged. We need to do a far better job not only of remembering our true
history but also of honoring the heritage and contributions of those who have been
limited and denied by university policies and practice. Moreover, we should not forget
Spencer or censor her from our history. She is a window on UNC’s history, and she is an
important historical figure that we should not celebrate, but we should study. (Sam?)
***
HOW WE ENDED UP WITH A CENSORED AND DISTORTED HISTORY
3. Before we begin discussing the question of developing a more honest history and
transforming the commemorative landscape, it is important to spend a moment
reviewing the history of how our memory of the reopening has been shaped. This is
one way to assess the claim that UNC’s history has been censored and distorted.
[FIRST, MUST LOOK AT THE LARGER FRAMEWORK OF US HISTORY-To understand why UNC is more democratic today than in the past, we have to look at
the history of social movements--something that the existing histories of the university
do not do. The fact that these histories--including books by Kemp Plummer Battle,
William S. Powell, and, most recently, William D. Snider--explain the development of the
university as the result of the leadership of white men frames the issue in such a way that
the contributions of social movements are hard to think about.
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The social movements that erupted during the 1960s made the United States a far more
democratic nation than ever before. For the first time, the government endorsed
equality for African Americans and women, at least in theory. Low-wage workers
organized powerful advocacy groups and labor movements. These struggles shattered
the repression and conformity of opinion that characterized the Cold War McCarthyism
of the 1950s. This democratic tide lifted the boats of all those who had been
disenfranchised and pushed to the margins of America. It made America better for us all.
The struggles that changed America changed the University of North Carolina, as well.
If it had not been for the black freedom movement, there would be no black students here,
no Black Student Movement, no black professors or administrators. If it had not been for
the women’s movement, Carolina would still be a predominantly male institution with
few female professors or administrators. If it had not been for the struggles of Indians,
Latinos, Asians, gays and lesbians, and people with disabilities, those groups would be
even more marginalized than they are today.
It was the power of grassroots movements that forced a reluctant UNC to accept the
dawn of a new day. Government leaders and university officials did not bring about
these changes. In fact, generally speaking, they resisted democratic reforms. Today,
despite significant diversity on campus, UNC still clings to the legacy of its unjust past in
disturbing ways. [There is not a strong sense of social justice informing the institutional
culture, particularly the commemorative landscape.] UNC does not visibly repudiate its
complicity with slavery, the repression of black freedom during Reconstruction, or the
creation of the Jim Crow state. [These were crimes against humanity, and--as Dr. John
Hope Franklin pointed out as head of the Commission…--there can be no real healing in
America from the wounds caused by these crimes until they are openly acknowledged and
repudiated. Instead, the university has censored this history and hidden it from view. In
addition, UNC does not conspicuously honor those who stood up for freedom during the
dark years of white supremacy or those who struggled during the recent past to usher in
a new day of freedom. And this is the worst crime of all, because it steals from us our
history, our freedom legacy, the knowledge of how we got to this point, who we are, and,
thus, what we can become. [MLK quote?]]
When Cornelia Phillips Spencer wrote the hymn that was sung at the reopening in
1875, she lauded the “golden days” of the slave master’s university and called for an
end to the disruptions of black freedom struggle and democratic insurgency. She
wrote, “Recall O God! the golden days; May rude unfruitful Discord cease….” In 1888,
when she wrote her history of North Carolina, she censored and distorted the
Reconstruction story to make it appear that white supremacy, the Klan, and all that was
done to suppress black freedom and biracial politics was necessary and justified.
Confederate veterans organizations picked up this racist rendering of history by Spencer
and others and developed it into the myth of “the Lost Cause.” Around the turn of the
century, racist historians, including J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton, for whom Hamilton Hall
is named, gave the Lost Cause myth a veneer of intellectual respectability. D.W.
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Griffiths, the groundbreaking filmmaker, popularized the myth in his vicious and
powerful film epic, Birth of a Nation, released in 1915? University historians like Kemp
Plummer Battle, Louis R. Wilson, William F. Powell, and William D. Snider have
repeated this story. In the mainstream of society, if Reconstruction was referred to at all,
it was generally dismissed as “the darker days of Reconstruction.”
Although some UNC historians promoted the racist myth of the Lost Cause, it
should be noted that there is an alternative Carolina tradition, though it is scarcely
known by any except professional historians. For this university to celebrate bigotry
and harmful lies about the past is particularly inappropriate since UNC has long been
rightfully proud of its role in the vanguard of liberal thinking in the South. According to
historian Bruce Baker, beginning in 1939, “UNC became the single most important
institution in the nation in promoting a new understanding of Reconstruction, one that did
not depend on the assumption of white supremacy and appeal to the lowest forms of
racial prejudice.” UNC’s southern historians today strongly support this interpretation, as
does the mainstream of the history profession. This is one of the traditions of which we
can be proud, and we should build on it as we re-examine the university’s history.
Nevertheless, revisionist history has not, thus far, had much of an impact on the
mainstream embrace of Lost Cause mythology. In particular, this mythology has had
a powerful impact on institutions of higher education in the South. It caused acts of
injustice to be celebrated, and it obliterated memory of achievements that should have
been remembered as among the schools’ proudest moments. Thus, today at Carolina, we
celebrate the reopening of the university by the leaders of white supremacy, while the
struggle to create a society based on freedom is dismissed as an era worse than the Civil
War itself. Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, Carolina still uncritically
celebrates slave masters, Klansmen, and the architects of the Jim Crow state, yet there is
almost nothing in our daily environment that calls us to honor, or even remember, the
slaves upon whose bodies Carolina was built, those who resisted the Klan during
Reconstruction, or those who fought to dismantle Jim Crow.
Celebrations of the Bell Award since 1994 have promoted this censored and
distorted history. For instance, in 1996, Chancellor Hooker acknowledged that Spencer
worked to “both close and re-open the University.” However, he explained this by
simply repeating the racist code words used by white supremacists in the 1860s and
repeated by historians of the university ever since. Concerning Spencer’s efforts to oust
President Soloman Pool and his Reconstruction faculty, Hooker said: “Mrs. Spencer
considered the new regime unfit for their office and unworthy of public confidence. She
believed that the only way to restore the institution was to close it again….” Generally,
there has been even less historical commentary in the Chancellors’ remarks, with merely
a brief notation that Spencer is best known for leading the effort to reopen the university
and ringing the bell. In 1997, the Chancellor repeated the iconic phrase about “the dark
days of Reconstruction.”
In July, 1997, however, one of the original members of the Bicentennial Commission
for Women that created the Bell Award, set the record straight. Dr. Annette C.
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Wright, associate director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South,
published an article about Spencer in the North Carolina Historical Review. It included
the statement, “Cornelia Spencer’s endorsement of nineteenth-century white supremacy
will not surprise many of the historians studying southern women of that era.”
This critique by a UNC historian, however, made no apparent impact on the Bell
Award ceremony. In 1999, professor Jack Richman, chair of the Bell Award Selection
Committee, admitting that he knew nothing about Spencer, quoted the source from which
he learned his history. Anne Repp, another member of the committee representing the
Office of the Provost, had loaned professor Richman a collection of Spencer’s writings
edited by former UNC professor, Louis R. Wilson. Richman quoted Wilson in his
remarks: “[Spencer’s writings] have been chosen specifically to show how one woman,
left a widow with an infant daughter in 1861 amid the desolation and poverty of the Civil
War and the despair and degradation of Reconstruction, faced the problems of those dark
periods and spurred North Carolina to the support of causes that have profoundly affected
every phase of the State’s life.” While Richman went on to discuss Spencer’s
championing of the cause of higher education for women, he ignored completely the
cause of white supremacy. Nor did he quote provocative statements from Wilson’s
Selected Works that would have offended those sensitive to racial justice. With reference
to the federal Civil Rights Bill under consideration in 1875, Spencer wrote in a statewide
magazine column, “‘All men created free and equal!’ Never was there a greater
misstatement….you know about the Civil Rights Bill--you know what it proposes--to
place the colored people on a social equality with the whites--and you know what its
effect will be if it is ever a law and is enforced: --to obliterate distinctions of color and
race. I cannot write of it coolly or without a shudder.” And earlier, at the height of the
Ku Klux Klan’s attacks on Republicans in Chapel Hill, she wrote a newspaper editorial
saying, “[the people of Chapel Hill] go on their way rejoicing that a weapon has at last
been found, keen enough to pierce the hitherto impenetrable armor of Radicalism.”
Even after the initial protests of the Bell Award in 2000 brought statewide publicity
to the issue, the Chancellor took no action. Indeed, there seems to have been a willful
effort on the part of university administrators to ignore any discussion of UNC’s
implication in the history of white supremacy, beginning with the Bicentennial when the
university adopted the claim that it was “the university of the people.” Not only the Bell
Award protests, but also concerns raised by black students and faculty since that time
over Silent Sam and Saunders Hall, have been dismissed.
These protests provided the university with exceptional opportunities to use the
interest aroused among students and the broader community as teaching moments
to re-examine our history. Unfortunately, an institutional culture grounded in
celebratory myths, challenged by ongoing black labor protests, and concerned about
institutional funding, would not encourage rocking the boat. Therefore, the university’s
official history still celebrates acts of injustice and omits the struggles of African
Americans and others that made us a more diverse and democratic institution. Most
importantly, the failure of the university to directly confront this appalling situation, until
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today, shows a failure of moral leadership and teaches students and others that it is all
right to ignore injustice.
***
A VISION OF THE POSSIBLE
What do I mean by “the commemorative landscape?” It is what the university
honors. It is the names of buildings and places, the sound of the chimes emanating from
the Bell Tower, the portraits on the walls, the university icons promoted in speeches and
texts, and the names of awards. Most of the images that impinge upon our senses as we
pass through the campus each day are still distinctly white, male, elite, and European.
Tragically, workers of color, particularly women, are still the ones picking up trash,
cooking food, and cleaning bathrooms.
Where are the statues and plaques and awards to honor the sacrifices made by those
who struggled for freedom? Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, why does
the university still not celebrate their lives and lift up their example in ways that are
manifest every day we walk across this campus? We walk by Silent Sam, and we are
reminded that this university celebrates the sacrifice of those who died for the
Confederate cause. We attend classes in buildings named to honor slave masters of the
Old South and leading architects of the Jim Crow state. Black students, whose ancestors
may have been lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, must attend classes in a building that
honors Col. William L. Saunders, leader of the North Carolina KKK during
Reconstruction. Yes, this is our history. But there is no honesty in the way it is
presented, and there is no apology and no repudiation. Most of all, very little has been
added to the commemorative landscape to welcome all the new faces and celebrate the
new day.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Like the workers, and students, and community activists
of the 1960s, we can change the university. We can make the commemorative landscape
more democratic, and we can change the institutional culture by demanding that the
university publicly honor the aspirations and human dignity of all people equally.
Imagine, if you will, a campus transformed by a sense of social justice. Walk with
me as we cross Franklin Street and enter the campus by Battle-Vance-Pettigrew. The
first thing we would see is a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King reaching out to us to help
save the soul of America. As we walk on, past Silent Sam, we would come to the statue
in front of the Alumni Building honoring UNC’s Unsung Founders, the black workers,
slave and free, who built Old East and other university buildings. Approaching Saunders
Hall we would note a plaque stating that Saunders led the KKK during Reconstruction
and served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees at the time of the
reopening. The plaque would acknowledge and repudiate the university’s participation in
white supremacy and would invite all to enter Saunders Hall and view the permanent
exhibit about the university’s role in slavery, the overthrow of Reconstruction, and the
making of the Jim Crow state. Continuing on to Lenoir, we would pass by a magnificent
mural honoring black freedom struggle. Upon entering Lenoir, we would see a plaque
honoring the black workers and students who led the cafeteria workers strike of 1969.
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Featured prominently would be the two women who led that strike, Mary Smith and
Elizabeth Brooks. Finally, approaching Davis Library, we would stop and read the words
engraved on a black obelisk, written by the “Black Bard of Chapel Hill,” slave poet,
Moses Horton, the first slave to publish a book in the South. As we continued our walk
around the campus, we would notice that the portraits on the walls and the artwork
displayed honored the heritage and showed the faces of all those who were formerly
limited and denied by the University of North Carolina.
***
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
To accomplish these goals, some of the signatories have formed an organization
called the Campaign for Justice and the Bell Award and we have developed a three
point program. Although we expect many good proposals for changing the
commemorative landscape to come out of our discussions today, we think the following
three things are a necessary beginning.
First, the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award should be renamed. It should
not celebrate the 1875 reopening of the university or Cornelia Phillips Spencer. We
believe that the new name for the award should be the Chancellor’s Bicentennial Award
for Women. This name embodies the historic significance of the original impulse to
create a bicentennial award for women and it avoids the controversial matter of picking
an individual to replace Spencer.
Second, the university should establish an annual Cornelia Phillips Spencer
Day. This day would not be a day to celebrate Spencer uncritically, but rather a day to
ponder the complex and contradictory history of the university and to celebrate the
contributions of women, including women of color.
Third, the university should establish a permanent commission that reflects
the diversity of the university to solicit proposals and make recommendations about
how we should remember and commemorate our history. To begin with, the
committee established to plan the symposium “Remembering Reconstruction at
Carolina” should be empowered to make recommendations as well as to solicit proposals.
When the permanent commission is formed, it should include, like the current committee,
representatives of students, campus workers, and members of the local community, as
well as faculty and administrators. [best traditions?]
Moreover, we are taking active measures to spread awareness of our organizing
efforts to campuses across the country, particularly in the South. Similar inquiries
are already under way at Brown, the University of Alabama, [others]. We have begun
efforts to link up with these other efforts. Carolina is not alone in its reluctance to deal
honestly with its history or with initiatives to celebrate those who have challenged white
supremacy. Indeed, liberal Chapel Hill is even now struggling with a determined
opposition to the renaming of Airport Road in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Inevitably, there will always be reactionaries who will try to dismiss and suppress efforts
to promote racial justice. Isolated and alone our protests cannot have a transformative
impact. However, if we are successful in joining with others to catalyze a southern
regional debate about Reconstruction and the unfinished work of the Second
Reconstruction, our local efforts can gain far wider significance.
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We should not underestimate either the significance of our vision for the future or
the difficulty of the resisting reactionary trends in the present. At a time when the
nation is becoming increasingly polarized, when universities like Carolina are becoming
the target of right wing attacks on liberal education by well funded groups like the Pope
Foundation, and when private wealth increasingly dominates public institutions, one of
the fundamental questions before us is, “What values will the university teach?” UNC
has an opportunity to honor its best traditions of liberal thinking and to claim a leading
role in the nation on questions of social justice. However, such a course will entail risks
and there will be costs. The trustees and the administration are unlikely to pursue such a
course without active encouragement and support. That is why we must build a
movement.
***
CONCLUSION
In light of the uncensored history we have heard today, how should we remember
Reconstruction at Carolina? We must honestly acknowledge that the reopening of the
university in 1875 represented the reactionary victory of the conservative old guard over
the insurgent popular democracy. Cornelia Phillips Spencer’s ringing of the bell did not
usher in a new day of light and liberty, but rather it reflected the consolidation of power
by a conservative elite that set back black freedom and democratic reform in North
Carolina by nearly a hundred years.
We have celebrated acts of injustice from Silent Sam to Saunders Hall and the
Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award. By raising up these flawed gods as faultless
icons of the university, we have promoted values at odds with the university’s creed and
best traditions, we have discouraged intellectual honesty and concern for social justice,
and we have obscured achievements that should be remembered as among Carolina’s
finest.
We are here today, let me suggest, to ask what our university will teach by word and
example. We are here today, on this historic occasion, to begin setting things right.
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