My friend chuck for their remarks. I will have more to say to them later. On march 9th, 1967, senator howard baker junior, the newly elected senator from tennessee made his maiden address, his first speech on the floor of the senate. He spoke for too long. The republican leader of the senate who was also bakers father in law, walked to congratulate him and said howard, occasionally you might enjoy the luxury of unexpressed thought. Which is good advice for farewell address as well. Senator bakers legislative assistant, i was also a speechwriter that made an address, or at least i thought i was. He developed a bad habit of not saying what i wrote for his speech. I asked to see him, do i have a problem with our relationship . Write what you want to write and say what i want to say. I learned a couple other things about saying what i want to say. One came from alex haley, the author of roots, you heard him speak once and said may i make a suggestion . If when you begin a speech you would
If welcome, we are in this place called point comfort. Its been that way for a long time. It is here that over 400 years of history have occurred. In fact some would say even longer, thousands of years. We are inside the case made museum, aptly named, because yours actually inside a case made. Its nothing more than a vault, its not afford ball. So you are actually inside the fort wall. Kind of unique for a museum in this day and time. Were gonna walk you through the case, museum we will talk about the very interesting thing that occurred here. Some of our stories will deal with the africans that first arrived here, and the American Civil War. Thousands and thousands of years ago, the natives of this land started to migrate. The migrated as far as west as mexico. And the Mississippi River valley. They migrated as far south as south america. They migrated all the way here to point comfort, where 40 monroe is located today. They were hunters, gatherers, and they lived a very successful an
I would also like to recognize and thank one of our trustees who has joined us today, david blight. One of our panelists. Opportunity tois say how proud we are to count david among our trustees at New York Historical. I want to recognize laura washington and mercedes franklin, who are cochairs of our Frederick Douglass counsel. Of course, welcome all members who have joined up today. Who have joined up today. [applause] and i want to recognize a if not, my colleagues are going up and down the aisles with notecards and pencils. The notecards will be collected later on in the program. There will be a book signing following the program this morning. The book signing will take place right outside these central doors in the smith gallery. Copies of the books are available for purchase at our ny History Museum store, which is located to my left on the 77th street side. We are really, truly delighted to welcome our guest speakers. David blight, professor of American History and director of th
Preparation for the event tonight and they said that is the new faulkner biography. I said well, you got the faulkner part right. The best way i can describe this book is equal parts military history, social commentary, and literary criticism. And i think it will appeal equally to fans of any of those subjects. What the book really did for me is force me to give some serious thought to where faulkner stands at a time when we are asking ourselves some difficult and longoverdue questions about our countrys historic difficulties when it comes to matters of race. Was he something of a pioneer on those issues or was he or another white writer profiting off of racist caricatures of black americans . Dr. Michael gorra, as you might imagine, has some thoughts on that. He is a professor of English Literature at Smith College in massachusetts. He is the author of several books including portrait of a novel, the making of an american masterpiece, which was a finalist for the pool surprise and bio
For we start i just want to say a huge thanks to perri, andrew and the team at norton for making this happen and all of you for showing up. So were not able to host eventsin our store spaces , Community Authors and readers. Were thankful for your support andfor the chance to make the space for conversation and connection. Now just a couple of housekeeping things. In our dual webinar tonight you can see and hear the speakers. They cannot see or hearyou. You can see a count of the top of yourscreen. Theres a couple of functions youll be using throughoutthe event. You can find at the bottom of your resume and down, theres an event labeled chat. Youre welcome to post your thoughts in the chat. Its a great way to show your appreciation for the author and interact with yourfellow attendees. If you have specific questions that cant be answered by the author please come to the q and a module and click on the icon labeled q and they that looks like two speech bubbles. Well be pulling questions