Established by africanamericans through, during the time of reconstruction. We want to tell the story of that history. Im an africanamerican baptist pastor, and what im really excited about is the birth place of the africanamerican Baptist Church was at silver block Baptist Church here in aiken county. All of that story and all of the rich stories of aiken will be told at this cultural center, and we thank you for being here. At the end of everything, if youd like to go on a tour, wed love to show you what were up to here at the cultural center. At this time were going to invite dr. Deborah jordan whos the chancellor, shell come and give us remarks. [applause] thank you so much. Im so honored to be invited to give a few remarks on this very important occasion. Luckily, i was just in washington, d. C. And had an opportunity to visit the office of congressman clyburn where i was received very warmly by his staff and then had a chance to be personally welcomed by the congressman, and we h
Mother and father against each other. We are pretty calm about that. We try to respect each others beliefs. And we just move along and it is just too much trouble to pack and go some place else. [laughter] [applause] she said i want to hear this. Before getting to the book signing we have a number of people to think. If you give me 60 seconds these people cannot go unrecognized. It took a lot to pull this together. You know this is under construction. The first person i want to acknowledge is joanne saunders. Raise your hands. She is the person responsible for pulling this together. Our sponsors. We are courtney clyburn, hope and price are sponsors in addition to everate we have elick electricians that pulled the wire together to make it happen, the Culture Center board, mcdonald law who is the architecture of this building. And we have a rule that says you have bill and beverly have been bringing in things. Sam walker, earnest butler, curtis man, the baptist church, nathaniel dick, an