Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Celebrating Freedom.
Commemorating the 150th anniversary
of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
I'm Tyrone Barksdale, your host for this evening's proceedings.
Ladies and gentlemen, please stand
for the presentation of the colors.
The presentation of the colors,
featuring the Howard University Army ROTC Color Guard,
and the singing of the National Anthem
will be performed by Howard University's
Afro Blue vocal ensemble,
and "Lift Every Voice and Sing" will be performed
by Howard University's music major, Ashton Vines.
Present the colors.
♪ O say can you see ♪
♪ by the dawn's early light ♪
♪ what so proudly we hailed ♪
♪ at the twilight's last gleaming ♪
♪ whose broad stripes and bright stars ♪
♪ through the perilous fight ♪
♪ o'er the ramparts we watched ♪
♪ were so gallantly streaming? ♪
♪ And the rockets' red glare ♪
♪ the bombs bursting in air ♪
♪ gave proof through the night ♪
♪ that our flag was still there ♪
♪ Still there ♪
♪ O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪
♪ o'er the land of the free ♪
♪ and the home of the brave? ♪
♪ Of the brave ♪
[Applause]
[ Playing "Lift Every Voice and Sing" ]
BARKSDALE: Retire the colors.
[Applause]
MAN: Right face!
Forward march!
Please be seated.
We'd also like to acknowledge our partners,
Partners in Sign,
with sign language interpretation
for our program this afternoon
being provided by Ms. Lovelyn Anderson.
We want to thank all of you for joining us this afternoon
for this momentous occasion
as we reflect on the pursuit of liberty.
To speak to the importance of this day and this site
for the narrative of freedom
and to extend words of welcome, we are very, very pleased
to introduce the Honorable Ken Salazar,
Secretary of the Interior of the United States of America.
[Applause]
Thank you very much.
It is truly an awesome privilege
to stand here in front of the Lincoln Memorial
to celebrate the sesquicentennial,
150th anniversary, of the issuance
of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
As I stand here before you, I have often been here before
with Congressman Lewis and with others,
and it's always good for all of us to remember
that even when this memorial, one of the most famous icons
of our nation and, in fact, to the world, was inaugurated,
it was still a segregated place.
It was still a segregated audience some 75-plus years ago.
And, so, though the Emancipation Proclamation
came into existence 150 years ago,
we have been on a march towards a more perfect union,
step by step,
and we all recognize that we still have a long ways to go.
But it is here now today at the National Mall,
on behalf of President Obama
and the men and women of the National Park Service
and the Department of the Interior
that we celebrate how far we have in fact come as a nation.
It was only a few months ago
when we celebrated the opening
of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
here on the National Mall.
It, too, is an iconic feature now of our National Mall.
And only in November of last year,
President Obama signed a proclamation
that made Fort Monroe a national park
through his powers as President of the United States.
Fort Monroe becomes one of our newest units
of the national park system,
and it marks both the beginning and the end of slavery.
It is a place where the first African-American
was born here on the continent.
It also was a place that became known as "Freedom Fortress"
and became the crucible for Abraham Lincoln's thinking
of what ought to go into the Emancipation Proclamation.
So as we stand here today on this 150th year of celebration,
as we honor our own Constitution
through Constitution Day on this 17th of September,
let us remember that we have come a long ways as a nation
in a struggle for a more perfect union.
It is true, as well, that we have a long ways to go.
Part of what we have to do a better job of is making sure
that we are telling all of America's story everywhere,
and yet, we have not done as good a job
as we need to do on that front.
So, much work remains,
and people like Congressman Lewis,
actress Alfre Woodard, Wayne Frederick,
and all of the students and faculty
at Howard University,
all of you who are here today.
And to James Leach, who, as the NEH chairman,
has been the lead in terms of putting this event together.
We're all very proud,
as the Department of the Interior,
the National Park Service,
to be a part of this event today.
Thank you very much.
[Applause]
We are proud to recognize the organization
that helped to champion the cause of freedom
and extend the narrative of history.
Please join me in welcoming the chair
of the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the Honorable Jim Leach.
[Applause]
Secretary Salazar, distinguished friends, guests,
thank you all for coming together
to help celebrate freedom and mark the 150th anniversary
of the issuance
of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
In this context, a group of artists, musicians,
speakers, and color guard
magnificently represent Howard University,
our esteemed partner,
in commemorating the actions taken a century and a half ago
to place the United States
on the path towards the promise of the founders.
This promise was and is recognized,
in substance and in law,
that all men are created equal
and that they are endowed by a creator
with common inalienable rights.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
belong to all of mankind.
The long struggle to achieve equality continues,
and today, through the readings and artistry
of Howard University students,
of extraordinary actors Alfre Woodard and Tyree Young,
and the dedication of a truly heroic American individual,
Congressman John Lewis,
we celebrate an awe-inspiring moment in freedom's march.
Now, as we come together as a country
to celebrate what unites rather than what divides,
it is my privilege to introduce the provost
and chief academic officer of Howard University,
Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick.
Dr. Frederick is a surgeon,
a cancer researcher,
an acclaimed administrator,
and civic and educational leader.
Ladies and gentlemen,
may I present Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick.
[Applause]
Howard University is pleased to collaborate
with the National Endowment for the Humanities
in observing Constitution Day
and the upcoming 150th anniversary
of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
I wish to thank Chairman James Leach
for the invitation to participate,
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
for enabling access to this site,
and Congressman John Lewis and Ms. Alfre Woodard
for their contributions to this tribute.
I also thank the faculty, students, and alumni
of Howard University for their hard work
in making this event possible.
Howard University was founded right after the Civil War
in the very spirit of emancipation
that we are commemorating today.
Oliver Otis Howard was a celebrated Union general.
After the war,
he served as a commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau,
and then, during the 1870s, as the third president
of the university that bears his name.
Other veterans of the abolitionist movement
and the Civil War, both black and white,
contributed to the early success of the institution.
Among these was renowned abolitionist
and freedom fighter Frederick Douglass,
who served as a trustee for 25 years.
If opportunity is America's promise,
then, certainly, education is the ink
with which that contract was written.
To enslaved persons who had been denied freedom for generations,
the Emancipation Proclamation gave hope.
This hope rested on the belief that the country of their birth
would be undeniably theirs,
a place where they and their children
could share with all Americans
the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution,
most notably freedom.
This quest reached a measure of fulfillment
during the Civil War and Reconstruction
with the abolition of slavery and the passage
of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
The pursuit of freedom and full citizenship
continued through the 19th and 20th centuries,
and in many important respects, continues to this day.
We have chosen a series of readings
from the Civil War period,
underscored by musical and dance selections,
to illustrate the long struggle for freedom.
As the readings and performances make clear,
and more recent events have shown,
Civil War emancipation represented
an important victory, but an incomplete one.
But in words that we will sing shortly,
"let us march on till victory is won."
So I introduce to you Mr. Tyrone Barksdale
of Howard University to narrate this journey.
Thanks, everyone, for coming.
[Applause]
So let's begin the journey.
Longing for freedom.
Welcome once again
world-renowned jazz vocal ensemble Afro Blue,
as they bring you their rendition of "Motherless Child."
♪ Sometimes, sometimes ♪
♪ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ♪
♪ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ♪
♪ Sometimes... ♪
BARKSDALE: "I once knew a little boy
whose mother and father died
when he was but six years of age.
He was a slave and had no one to care for him.
He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel,
and in cold weather,
would crawl into a meal bag headfirst
and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm.
Often, he would roast an ear of corn and eat it
to satisfy his hunger.
And many times, he would crawl under the barn or stable
and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire to eat.
That boy did not wear pants like you and I.
He wore a torn and tattered hand-me-down linen shirt.
Schools were unknown to him,
and he learned to spell from an old Webster's Spelling Book
and to read and write from posters on cellar doors,
where boys and men would help him to go.
He would go on to preach and to speak
and soon become well-known far and wide.
He became United States elector, the United States marshal,
United States recorder, United States diplomat,
and he accumulated some wealth.
He wore broadcloth
and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table.
That boy was Frederick Douglass."
♪ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ♪
♪ A child ♪
[Applause]
Afro Blue, ladies and gentlemen.
Please welcome now Howard University acting alum
Tyree Young to read an excerpt from Frederic Douglass'
My Bondage, My Freedom,
accompanied by Howard University music professor
Sais Kamalidiin.
"I hated slavery, always."
[Harmonica playing]
"And the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze
to fan it into a blaze at any moment.
The thought of only being a creature
of the present and the past troubled me,
and I longed to have a future,
a future with hope in it.
To be shut up entirely to the past and present
is abhorrent to the human mind.
It is to the soul,
whose life and happiness is unceasing progress,
what the prison is to the body,
a blight and mildew,
a hell of horrors.
The dawning of this, another year,
awakened me from my temporary slumber,
and roused into life my latent,
but long-standing cherished aspirations for freedom.
I was not only ashamed to be contended in slavery,
but ashamed to seem to be contented."
[Applause]
As man and woman,
the trauma of slavery was experienced differently,
and with that a woman does and is,
it was expected to be so.
Man was unable to keep hope for the present and the future,
and woman unable to see it for her children.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Academy Award-nominated,
Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actress,
activist, and member
of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities
Alfre Woodard
to perform performs Harriet Jacobs'
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
(Longing for Freedom).
"Slavery is terrible for a man,
but it is far more terrible to a woman.
Oh, you happy free women,
contrast your New Year's Day
with that of the bondwoman!
With you, it is a pleasant season,
and the light of the day is blessed."
[Harmonica plays]
"Friendly wishes meet you everywhere
and gifts are showered upon you.
Even hearts that have been estranged from you
soften at this season,
and lips that have been silent echo back,
'I wish you a happy New Year!'
Children bring their little offerings
and raise their rosy lips up for a caress.
They are your own,
and no hand but that of death can take them from you.
But to the slave mother,
New Year's Day come laden with peculiar sorrows.
She sits on her cold cabin floor,
watching the children
who may all be torn from her the next morning.
And often does she wish that she and they might die
before the day dawns.
She may be an ignorant creature,
degraded by the system
that has brutalized her since her childhood,
but she has a mother's instincts
and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies."
[Applause]
Please welcome once again
internationally renowned and award-winning Afro Blue,
the jazz vocal ensemble, to present and perform
"Oh, Freedom."
♪ Oh, freedom ♪
♪ Oh, freedom ♪
♪ Oh, freedom over me ♪
♪ And before I'd be a slave ♪
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪
♪ and go home to my Lord ♪
♪ and be free ♪
♪ Oh, freedom ♪
♪ Oh, freedom ♪
♪ Oh, freedom over me ♪
♪ And before I'd be a slave ♪
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪
♪ and go home to my Lord ♪
♪ and be free ♪
♪ And go home to my Lord ♪
♪ and be free ♪
[Applause]
Emancipation! Oh, what a great day!
For the first time, they could not believe what they heard.
For it was not a faint whisper amongst a few.
It was actually shouted by all.
What was once a vision and hope for the future
had become present circumstances.
Freedom was here.
Reading Charlotte Forten's "Emancipation Day"
and "The Emancipation Story,"
please welcome once again to read two verses
acclaimed actress Alfre Woodard,
with interpretive dance being accompanied
by Howard University dance major Christen Williams.
[Applause]
"New Year's Day, Emancipation Day,
was a glorious one to us."
[Harmonica playing]
"General Saxton and Colonel Higginson
had invited us to visit the camp
of the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers
on that day, the greatest day in the nation's history.
The celebration took place
in the beautiful grove of live oaks adjoining the camp.
I wish it were possible
to describe fitly the scene which met our eyes,
as we sat upon the stand
and looked down on the crowd before us.
There were the black soldiers
in their blue coats and scarlet pantaloons,
the officers of the First Regiment,
and of other regiments in their handsome uniforms.
And there were crowds of lookers-on --
men, women, and children of every complexion,
grouped in various attitudes under the moss-hung trees.
At its conclusion, the faces all wore a happy, interesting look
before Colonel Higginson could reply,
and while he still stood holding the flags in his hand,
some of the colored people, of their own accord,
commenced signing, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee."
It was a touching and beautiful incident
and sent a thrill through all of our hearts."
[Applause]
"Never will forget that night of freedom.
I was a young gal, 'bout 10 years old,
and we done heard that Lincoln done turn them Negroes free.
Old missus say there weren't nothing to it.
Then a Yankee soldier told someone in Williamsburg
that Master Lincoln done signed the Emancipation.
Was winter time and mighty cold that night,
but everybody commenced to getting ready to leave.
Didn't care nothin' 'bout missus.
Was goin' to the Union lines.
And all that night,
Negroes danced and sang right out in the cold.
Next morning at daybreak, we all started out
with blankets and clothes and pots and pans
and chickens piled on our backs,
'cause missus said we couldn't take no horses or carts.
And as the sun come up over the trees,
the Negroes all started to singin'.
'Sun, you be here and I be gone.
Bye-bye, don't grieve for me.
Won't give you my place, not for yours.
Bye-bye, don't grieve for me,
'cause you be here and I be gone.'"
[Applause]
BARKSDALE: Alfre Woodard, ladies and gentlemen.
And Christen Williams.
Once again,
Howard University music major Ashton Vines to perform
Donald Byrd's "Cristo Redentor."
[Applause]
Being free.
It was clearly defined, given an identity,
and set guidelines for what it was meant to become free.
A natural right gained as a privilege.
And we cheerfully accepted it and all that came with it.
Welcome once again Howard University acting alum
Tyree Young to perform "The Meaning of Freedom,"
accompanied by Howard University professor Sais Kamalidiin.
"Words are too weak to tell how profoundly grateful we are
to the federal government for the good work of freedom,
which it is gradually carrying forward.
[Harmonica plays]
And for the Emancipation Proclamation,
which has set free all the slaves
in some of the rebellious states,
as well as many of the slaves in Tennessee.
We hold that freedom
is the natural right of all men,
which they themselves have no more right to give
or barter away than they have to sell their honor,
their wives, or their children.
We claim to be men belonging to the great human family,
descended from one great God, who is the common Father of all,
and who bestowed on all races
and tries the priceless right of freedom.
We claim freedom as our natural right and ask that,
in harmony and cooperation with the nation at large,
you should cup up by the roots the system of slavery,
which is not only a wrong to us,
but the source of all evil,
which, at present, afflicts the state.
Devoted as we are to the principles of justice,
of love to all men, and of equal rights,
on which our government is based,
and which make it the hope of the world.
We know the burdens of citizenship
and are ready to bear them.
We know the duties of the good citizen
and are ready to perform them cheerfully.
And would ask to be put in a position
in which we can discharge them more effectually.
We do not ask for the privilege of citizenship
wishing to shun the obligations imposed by it."
[Applause]
As we reflect
on our past generation's struggle for freedom,
we look to it for relevance today.
From the early years as chairman
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC,
to the director of the Voters Education Project
that registered nearly four million minority voters,
to current service as US representative
of Georgia's fifth congressional district,
we welcome a true freedom fighter
and a lion for the rights of all people
and a fighter for civil rights and human rights everywhere.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome,
to help us bring our momentous journey full circle,
Congressman John Lewis.
[Applause]
Mr. Secretary, thank you for making
this little piece of real estate available to all of us.
Thank you.
I thank my friend and former colleague Jim Leach,
Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities,
and his entire administration for inviting me to celebrate
the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
and the preliminary Proclamation distributed by Abraham Lincoln
on September 22, 1862.
Today, this day, you've heard the voices of freedom,
the words of slaves and free men
that tell the American story.
In keeping with this tribute, I would also like
to offer two little readings.
The first, many of you can probably recite by heart,
so please accept my version of this great testimony.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain Rights,
among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness."
You probably recognize these as the first words
of the Declaration of Independence.
They were written by the founders of this nation
in order to justify their break from the oppression
of an unjust ruler.
Now, I often wonder
how the men who wrote these words
could almost in the same breath
create a United States Constitution
that declares some people are less than human.
We must never, ever forget,
never, ever forget,
that in this central conflict
which gave rise to the Emancipation Proclamation,
to the modern-day civil rights movement of the 1960s
and hundreds, maybe even thousands
of uprisings and revolts in between and ever since,
this is the conflict at the very heart of every war,
at the center of all discord, and at the core of
man's unending search for freedom.
To me, no one makes the problem more clear
than Frederick Douglass.
His image will soon be bronzed
and placed in the United States Capitol,
but on an Independence Day in 1852,
he wrote these words,
these blistering words.
Unbelievable words.
"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer:
a day that reveals to him,
more than all other days of the year,
the gross injustice and cruelty
to which he is the constant victim.
Could I reach the nation's ear,
I would today pour out a fiery stream
of biting ridicule and stern rebuke.
For it is not light that is needed, but fire;
it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
We need the storm, the whirlwind,
and the earthquake.
The feeling of the nation must be quickened;
the conscience of the nation must be roused;
the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed;
and its crimes against God and man must be denounced."
Slavery was an affront to human dignity.
It was an evil, ungodly, dehumanizing system.
It did not matter that it lasted over 300 years.
It was bound to fail.
It could never last because it violated one eternal truth --
we're one people.
One family.
The American family.
We live in the same house,
the American house,
the world house.
We could end our strife today and set our sights
on the higher work of liberation and freedom
if we could only accept one simple idea.
It doesn't matter whether you are a Democrat or Republican,
black or white, gay or straight,
Latino, Asian, native-born.
It doesn't matter whether you are a Jew, a Gentile,
Muslim, a Christian,
disabled or nimble, fat or lean,
short or tall.
We are all divine sparks of one creator.
We're one people,
one family.
We're one house.
If we truly want to honor the legacy
of this great history, then we must ask ourselves
whether the relatives of slavery
still linger in our minds and in our hearts.
Did we steal this power and disenfranchise others
in our policies or our personal affairs?
Do we believe there are some people who are less intelligent,
less capable, less deserving than others?
The story of the Emancipation Proclamation
reveals that no matter how great the nation
or how mighty its military power,
no matter how fertile the land or wealthy its people,
there's nothing, no power on Earth,
that can stand against the truth, the simple truth,
liberation, freedom,
is the ultimate future of all humanity.
And our history teaches us that every effort to divide
is bound to fail.
Freedom, true freedom,
may never be free.
It will always be a constant struggle,
and our struggle is not a struggle that lasts
for one day, one week, one month, one year,
but it is a struggle of a lifetime,
of many lifetimes.
It will emerge from a contradiction within us
as a people and as a nation that operate against the truth.
For one day, one day here in America,
one day on this little planet,
on this little spaceship that we call Earth,
we all will live in freedom.
For one day, we will turn our swords into plowshares
and our spears into pruning hooks.
One day, we will finally learn to build and not tear down,
to reconcile and not divide,
to love and not hate.
One day, we will lay down the burden of race,
class, and political party.
One day...
in this land...
on this piece of real estate,
we will finally build a more perfect Union,
a nation and a world community at peace with itself.
The signs that I saw when I was growing up in rural Alabama
during the '40s and the '50s that said "white men,"
"colored men," "white women," "colored women,"
"white waiting," "colored waiting,"
those signs are gone and they will not return.
And the only places our children,
our young people, will see those signs
will be in a book,
in a museum,
on a video.
If someone said nothing has changed,
I would say, come and walk in my shoes,
and I will show you change.
Almost 50 years ago,
I came here and stood on those steps
with Martin Luther King, Jr., and others.
Back then, we had a dream.
That dream is in the process of being realized.
So we must never, ever give up on our march
toward complete freedom.
Thank you very much.
[Applause]
Thank you for those remarks, Congressman Lewis,
who simply reminds us all
that we are one here,
inextricably tied to one another.
Whether we accept it, acknowledge it,
or even see it, we are one.
Our acknowledgments.
We'd like to thank so many people.
We may miss a few, but we do want to acknowledge just a few.
We would like to thank
the National Endowment for the Humanities,
Howard University's Office of the President
and office of the Provost and Chief Academic Officer.
Special thanks to Dr. Joseph P. Reidy,
the Office of the Dean of the College
of Arts and Sciences, Dean Segun Gbadegesin, Dean,
Associate Dean Gwendolyn Everett,
Division of Fine Arts Departments of Music,
Dance, and Theater Arts, Dr. Edna Medford,
Dr. Linda Jones,
Ms. Miriam Ahmed,
Ms. Sydnea Lewis,
and our executive producer, Professor Robin Harris.
And to our special guests this evening,
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar,
Provost Wayne Frederick, and Congressman John Lewis,
and to the incomparable Alfre Woodard,
we thank you all for joining us to be a part of
this very special occasion.
And, finally, we'd like to thank you
for being here with us as we celebrated the journey
and the celebration of freedom,
the Constitution Day observance at the Lincoln Memorial.
I'm Tyrone Barksdale, your host,
and remember, one person can make a difference.
Have a wonderful evening.
[Applause]
♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪
♪ Till Earth and Heaven ring ♪
♪ Ring with the harmonies ♪
♪ Of liberty ♪
♪ Let our rejoicing rise ♪
♪ High as the listening skies ♪
♪ Let it resound loud as
♪ The rolling sea ♪
♪ Sing a song full of the faith ♪
♪ That the dark past has taught us ♪
♪ Sing a song full of the hope ♪
♪ That the present has brought us ♪
♪ Facing the rising sun ♪
♪ Of our new day begun ♪
♪ Let us march on till victory ♪
♪ Is won ♪
♪ Is won ♪
[Applause]
This concludes our program.
Thank you so much this evening, and good night.