 warm welcome to a presidential conversation preserving the legacy of our historically black colleges and universities. This session is brought to you by the African American Cultural Heritage Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. We are honored, we are privileged to have three distinguished university college presidents with us for this session. We have Dr. Cynthia Warrick, Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Dr. Logan Hampton, Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, and certainly Dr. Wilson, president of Morgan State University in Baltimore. But before we get underway, let me again on behalf of the presidents express our deep gratitude to Brent Legs and Cynthia Talbert at the National Trust for Historic Preservation for extending to us this warm opportunity, this very generous opportunity to share with you our thoughts, our perspective, our visions, our hopes, our dream about the future of preserving the legacy of our of our historically black colleges and universities. So let's let's get started. I honored, I'm humbled to serve as your moderator and I'm a graduate of a historically black university, Houston Tillerson University in Austin, Texas. And if I were sitting in a hall of Congress, I would use the expression I would I would ask my fellow presidents, I'm pointing myself as the president, to maybe yield the balance of their time so I could speak all afternoon about Houston Tillerson University, but that would not be appropriate. As we know, our HBCU's own and steward a diverse and impressive collection of historic sites, pardon me, historic landscapes, buildings, and archives. The management and conversation of these conference, conservation of these heritage resources are invaluable to the understanding of HBCU's legacy. It is also critically important to attract students, faculty, and administrators who seek a unique a unique cultural and educational experience. In essence, historic preservation, whether on a formal informal basis, can help distinguish HBCUs from other academic institutions. It really is an advantage, a competitive advantage. So let me ask our distinguished president a couple of questions at the outset. What is your perspective on historic preservation? How has your school integrated historic preservation into your broader academic mission and campus planning activities? And let me start with Dr. Hampton at Lane College. Well, thank you. Thank you for this opportunity in this forum and an opportunity to tell the story of Lane College. Historic preservation, certainly it's just been a part of the fabric of our institution. We began in 1882 as the first institution of learning for the, at that point, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in 1882. The church itself was founded in 1870 and just fresh out of slavery just on the other side of Reconstruction. Our founders, next to soul salvation, they thought that educating ministers, educating teachers that would then educate the populace was their highest priority. And so they set out doing that. And I'm always interested by that notion. When I think about myself, I might have had some other interest in my own mind and thinking about those who had formerly forced labor without compensation. I might have had some other thought, but their thought was to get about equipping those newly free former forced laborers to participate in society, to contribute to society, and to pursue education. And that process began at the beginning, at the founding of our constitution as soon as the persons were set free. And so for me, that's a transforming thought and a liberating thought and something that we ought to celebrate. And throughout our history, that has been, that has continued to be who it is that we are, providing education and opportunity to those persons who might not have access to education, helping students to fully establish the power of their potential. Today, our conversation is an interesting conversation in that we talk about historic preservation. And a part of our work in historic preservation is I sit in the space that you're looking at now is one of the original spaces that was built on our, on our campus. In fact, one of our local historians reminds me that when Bishop Lane raised $240 to buy a property, he bought four acres right here on the formerly haze forced labor camp. And so this space where the building, the current administration building sits, sits in about the same place as the quote unquote big house set. As my students might say, you know, I feel some type of way about that. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But this space is, in this place, this land was, was a former, the former forced labor labor camp. And it is now a seat of education and has, and has been now for 140 years. And so preserving that history, I think every day when I wake up that I stand on the shoulders of those 41 former forced laborers who founded our church. And then in 1878, J.K. Daniels himself, who made the motion to establish a school of learning in, in Tennessee, and then Bishop Lane, who then took on the great work of raising the money and then founding the school. Every day I'm reminded, as I wake on this holy hill and begin my work, that I do in fact stand on their, stand on their shoulders. So historic preservation is, is more than, than just a notion for us of, of holding, preserving a facility. I mean, it is, it is who we are. And it is a legacy that we live and that we continue even today. Well, let me stop there. I mean, I certainly could talk on and on about our founders and what they, what they intended. But I certainly want to yield time to my colleagues. Dr. Cynthia Warwick, please tell us about Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Well, thank you, Mr. Stanton. And thank you, colleagues for sharing these stories. The history of Lane College is very interesting and somewhat similar to Stillman College. Stillman was founded in 1876 by the pastor of First Presbyterian Church here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was the white pastor at a time when the Constitution of Alabama changed to make it illegal to educate African Americans in public schools. So that ushered in Jim Crow. And he went to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and asked to start a school to educate black ministers. He started the school in his house at first. And his house is still standing. It's owned by the National Alumni Association and is in the National Register and is also an Alabama Historic Landmark. And then after a few years, he bought the old Cochrane plantation, which is where we sit today on 105 acres, which housed 71 slaves in its time and during slavery. And the columns on the plantation house were saved to be placed on our current Shepard Library, the columns and the capitals, which were imported Italian marble and wrought iron capitals. And so the history of that plantation house, where they used to hold classes still remains on our campus, on the library. The campus is an Alabama Historic Landmark and we are a National Register Historic District. The three buildings contributing to the district, the oldest building being Winsborough Hall, which was built by the Presbyterian women in 1922. It's in the National Register. And then Snedeker Hall, the Presbyterian women built it as well because there was no Negro hospital in Tuscaloosa. So the Presbyterian women decided first, there weren't any women at Stillman, we're going to build a girl's school and a dormitory for the girls. And then they said, well, there's no healthcare in the community. So we're going to build a hospital and a nursing program. And so they built Snedeker Hall. And then that's the third building in Shepard Library, where the capitals and columns stand. So historic preservation is very important to Stillman. It tells the history of Stillman. It tells the history of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and African Americans in this community most have a connection to Stillman. It's the anchor in the West End, which is the historic African American community. It is the largest contiguous landowner in the community. So we are the anchor for Black Tuscaloosa. And so that history is very important. And one of the things that we're doing with the support of the National Trust and the National Park Service is raising funds to restore Winsborough Hall, which is in significant disrepair. We use the library, Shepard Library. It is being converted to a Civil Rights Museum and Digital Learning Center. So we can tell the story because there's no place in Tuscaloosa that is telling the story of Stillman. I think when people think about Alabama, they think about Birmingham and Selma. But Tuscaloosa had marches. They had a Bloody Tuesday that occurred prior to the Selma march. They had sit-ins, bus boycotts, all of the things that were taking place in Montgomery and Birmingham and Selma took place in Tuscaloosa. But no one knows that history. And so we feel that Stillman will be able to share that history with the community and the nation about those same types of individuals. Many who were Stillman students who participated in the marches and the National Student Coordinating Committee and the sit-ins and, you know, and certainly were injured and arrested during Bloody Tuesday. So this history is a history of America. It's a history that needs to be preserved and these buildings connect us to that history. So restoring them on our campuses is very important. Excellent. Excellent, Dr. Horway. Dr. Wilson at Morgan State University in Baltimore, please share with us the history of Morgan State and some of your current developments there. Certainly will, Robert. And so first of all, let me express my appreciation to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, for having me and President Warwick and President Hampton to talk about our incredible institutions and their legacies. I think this is an enormously important conversation and I cannot think of a better place to have it and a better umbrella in which this conversation will take place. We at Morgan, of course, like you heard from President Hampton at Lane and President Warwick at Stillman, have been around for a while, came into existence in 1867 and, of course, we are now 155th year. Morgan's founding is not too dissimilar from that of many of the other 100 plus HBCUs. We were established by five visionary African American ministers of which one of them was newly freed from a Southern Maryland plantation and his master, if you will, gave him his freedom. But there was a law in place, Robert, at the time called the Future to Slave Act and it said that if individuals were caught beyond on the southern side of the Mason Dixon line, even if they were free, they could be returned to their masters or go to jail. One of these individuals who actually was credited with implanting this fire within the ministry for the founding of Morgan was the late Reverend Samuel L. Green and he actually left that plantation and was caught by fugitive bounty hunters, if you will, and they sentenced him to 10 years in a Baltimore City penitentiary of which he served five and he could read, he could write and his crime was that he was in possession of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harry Beecher Stowe's book and so this desire on his part to establish an institution to enable blacks who would be coming out of slavery to cultivate their minds, it became even more urgent for him while he was in the penitentiary and so when he was released out of the penitentiary he then led the movement to establish the Centenary Biblical Institute which is now of course Morgan State University. Reverend Samuel Green is depicted in the movie Harriet and was there as the minister of the church that actually was responsible for helping Harriet Tubman on numerous treks back to Maryland through free slaves and so the history of Morgan is one that is rooted in activism. We cannot run away from that and that activism started of course with Reverend Samuel Green and it persists at the university, it persists in terms of our curriculum, it persists in terms of our structures. You know what I like to say about our institutions, about HBCUs, is that they really are tangible edifices of the hopes and the aspirations of the slaves and so we here at Morgan, we like our other HBCUs and brothers, we understand what that means and so it's not just about the structures, it's how do you also align curricular in a way that's going to tell the historical story and so that's what we do here, we excavate the history, we make no apology about the fact that when you walk our campus you cannot divorce that historic walk from a walk to freedom and the fight for everyone to be a part of the American ideals embedded in the Constitution and so we have moved from that founding in 1867 where we had nine students and two professors to today where we have close to nine thousand students coming from 44 states over 70 countries, we're offering 150 academic degree programs and about 75 percent of our students are African-American and so we stand as a very proud institution in the American higher education landscape and institutions like Morgan and Stillman and Lane and others, they must be enhanced, they must be preserved because if that does not happen we would almost consciously be removing such an important part of our history from our landscape and we know that as Mo Angelo said, history cannot be unlealed and so we are not about on living the history but we're about being the true storytellers of it. Excellent, I appreciate that very much Dr. Wilson as all of us can appreciate our colleges and universities are dynamic, they continue to grow, continue to expand, to meet the needs of our educational objectives or supporting our educational objectives and certainly encouraging our students to seek a wide variety of professional occupations and recognizing that our universities, our campuses are growing, what are you undertaking relative to assure that modern construction to meet current and future needs are compatible with preserving the integrity of buildings that were constructed shortly after the Civil War if you will and many of these buildings were constructed by students themselves so how do you maintain that historic integrity of our legacy with modern day needs? Let's start with you Dr. Wilson. Well we are fortunate at Morgan to have presented to the state of Maryland over the last 12 years a case for state investment in the capital aspect of our campus and so Robert we're in the middle of a one billion dollar capital yes one million capital enhancement of the campus and if you come to the campus you'll see that in the last seven or eight years we have built some pretty impressive academic facilities and they're still going up as I speak but one thing is extraordinarily clear to us is that we understand those legacy buildings and the stories that those legacy buildings those legacy buildings are telling and the new buildings must if you will have some kinship with those stories they must have kinship with those stories in terms of the structures and in terms of what happens within their walls and so because Morgan our current site we've been on this site for 105 years we were built on a quarry in the sort of northeast corner at the town of Baltimore County before it was next into the city many of those early legacy buildings actually the stone came from that quarry and that's why when you come to Morgan and you look at those legacy buildings you will not see a red brick building as a part of our historic legacy here and so with the newer buildings still no red brick buildings and we try and create some of the skin on those newer buildings that is not going to be you know in an architectural fight if you will with the legacy buildings that's just baked into our master plan and the Board of Regents expects us to execute it and the faculty is expecting that the students are expecting that surely our alumni you know who have those experiences in those legacy buildings I mean they really thrive and they're happy with all of the contemporary facilities that we're seeing but they pay a lot of attention and make sure that those are not standing out like we're sort of and so to conclude you know we are doing two things number one we are carefully orchestrating a master plan to renovate some of our legacy buildings saving the exterior the skin but bringing them to a higher degree of functionality contemporarily and then number two we are making sure that we are true to the historic presence of those buildings on this campus that must always occupy a prominent place on the Morgan campus excellent excellent Dr. Wilson Dr. Warwick you mentioned earlier about some of the richness of the buildings on your campus have been recognized nationally and that they're listed on the Registry of Historic Places and I would like for you to comment a little bit about your vision your development plans to to increase facilities on your campus but also doing in such a way that it does not enter the integrity of your historic structures and lastly it would be my hope that all of our HBCUs would ultimately seek the kind of recognition that that you have there at stillman college in terms of being listed on the national register of historic places yes well I'm happy to share we have a master planning team similar to what president Wilson was sharing and our master plan team works with historic architects as you know when you in the national register there's lots of restrictions in terms maintaining that historic character and so that's prominent in our in our minds because that funding we're eligible for we have to adhere to those building requirements and so most of our historic campus and the district is in the quad at the very front of the campus so it takes up you know a big bulk and the quad has very old magnolia trees huge magnolia trees that you know share this space with these historic structures as you know historic preservation is very expensive and it takes a long time to do because once you start working on one piece you find out that something else is wrong that's where we are with shepherd library and the columns we got some funding from the state of alabama to work on the facade and the roof and the the oh I forget what you call those the awnings kind of like the betia board and when we started to take the pain off of the the columns you know which came from the original plantation house so those columns are older than stillman there they were that house was built in 1837 so those columns and capitals we were able to they were able to take the the wrought iron capitals off and restore them but when we were trying to restore the columns they have lead based paint on them so we're removing the paint found out there a lot of cracks and other kind of fissures on the column so now we've had to have our architect come in and make recommendations on what we need to do to protect the integrity of the columns before we can put the capitals back on the the built on the on the top of them so it's a slow process certainly it's a very expensive process and and just you know knowing that these very delicate historic structures that contribute to these buildings are you know we have to as much as possible go back to the original type of materials that are used or preserve existing historic materials that exist on the building so we can't take the windows out and put in new windows we can't you know we can't take the doors off we we have to find aesthetic ways to deal with the American Disabilities Act some of these buildings are grandfathered in so they don't have to have the ADA requirements but we do have to be mindful of the the the people that come to the building so we do have to find innovative ways to access the space by wheelchair and other persons with disabilities so it's it's very challenging to have these structures and certainly our master plan team works closely with architects and planners in order to ensure the the historic integrity is retained but also in new buildings that they complement the existing campus architecture so just like Dr. Wilson mentioned where we we have a lot of red brick are you know other you know in different periods of time buildings from the 20s then the 40s then the 50s and now you know the 60s and now the the you know the 21st century architecture is different so we try to to complement the existing historic campus so that you know it doesn't look like you when you come on the campus you're you know it's all still and it doesn't look like some place from a different century so and it and it's difficult to do and very expensive to do actually agreed agreed Dr. Hampton you spoke earlier about your plans and vision in terms of continue to expand the physical assets of of your of your campus maybe won't just elaborate a little bit on that yes I I want I want to go back to your original question when you when you when you set the question up for Dr. Wilson and and you you ask how do you go about this yes the the first word or words that popped into my head were very carefully uh I I the first thought that came to my mind was was when we were needing to replace the windows in cleaves hall and cleaves cleaves hall is a residence hall it was historically the female residence hall and at the time that it was it was built in 1921 it was it coincided with the building of the steam the steam plant and so the the it was one of those moments in history where you could live at Lane College live in a residence hall and you had steam heat and so I am a fond of saying that we were uptown I mean it was it was the place to live on on campus in uh in 19 in 1921 but when we got ready to change those windows it was just more than a notion it it took us the better part of a year to plan it and then and then to find a contractor who had never enough to execute it and and so we were able to able to find find both and able to get the windows replaced and so that when you look at the photo that's in my conference room right behind me and you look at the current cleaves hall the buildings look look the same we do not impact the the historicity of it this this work is just uh just a unique work and it's an exciting work I have the benefit of serving and I mentioned earlier I'm in Braille that to students of a generation they consider this building the administration building they don't know it as as as Braille as Braille Hall and it was renovated in the early 2000s and for those students of a generation who will come and during homecoming and meet me in my office they will tell me that this office was their math class so I'm uh I am honored to to serve in their in their math class now you see these floors that are behind me I believe you can see these floor now these are new floors but if you just step right outside in the for you of this office you will see the floors the original floors the hundred plus year old floors um that uh that were for students of that generation that continue uh to to to today so I say all that to say I mean it is a very it's just uh painstakingly careful work that we do to um maintain our facilities in the same way that my colleagues have master plans Lane College was we were blessed to be able to receive a grant to plan the restoration of J.K. Daniels Hall and that is a hall that has just been an absolute uh workforce of a building for our for our institution and it's the it is the hall that we are currently uh looking to uh looking to restore it was it originally established as the industries and trades of building and it and in that building it had things like it had shoe making auto mechanics tailoring um a number of a number of trade agriculture and as I as I think about it and I think about the history currently we are a liberal arts uh institution but we have we kind of cycle back around to thinking about how as a liberal arts institution do we prepare students to or how we how do we prepare students to work in industries that are highly technical and so in response to that we have established our career pathways initiative which allows students who are pursuing liberal arts baccalaureate degrees an opportunity to develop stackable technical credentials in some cases that would prepare them to compete for entry level jobs say in in manufacturing or the technology or the digital space um that would allow them to get in in the door so that then they could use their higher order skills that we teach them in the liberal arts the the scholar skills scholar habits the thinking the theoretical kind of skills um they could get in the door and then they can use that skill set uh as well so it is it is interesting to me that we have cycled all the way back around to the original purpose for that building that building for us has served over the years and let me go quickly it it has served for us as the industries and trades building but shortly thereafter it was established in 19 built in 1923 but by 1928 a floor of it was being used as a library um that was on the president uh lane uh our founders one of our founders sons and then later uh under a president kirkendall it was renovated in the early 1950s and the entire building uh was used as as a library uh now today it is used as a building where we have a number of services our security is in there and as and it serves as an office building and provides some some services to our to our campus community but as we think about it in the future and as a part of our master plan we're reconceiving how we might use that building and beginning to move back to its original use in a modern day sense as a as a modern day industries industries and trades building where students are able to um do one stop shopping and earn stackable credentials yeah excellent excellent excellent it is uh so inspiring just to reflect on the richness of our legacy as manifested by our historically black college and universities those that are that are privately endowed and those that are state supported and uh it just a fascinating history and interestingly enough part of one campus is administered directly by the national park service and that is the tuskegee institute uh national historic site which encompasses the oaks the home of president uh bookity washington built by the students uh and the library and laboratory used by uh dr jordy washington carver again built by the students and when the congress passed legislation authorizing uh the tuskegee institute historic site as a unit of park system uh that elevated the richness of uh hbc use in the hall of congress and who remind us that we should as a nation have a perpetual responsibility of preserving this rich chapter in in our collective history uh i uh want to share with the listen audience that i want to commend each of you and your respective campuses for being a recipient of the hcc grant under the cultural heritage stewardship institute uh administered by brett leg and miss tiffany tallbrook so congratulations on that and i'm sure that uh brett and and college will be looking favorably up on new requests for further funding i hope brett picks up on that the last question is as i said before we are certainly indebted to uh to the national trust for historic preservation we're indebted to the national council on historic preservation the national park service and in many of the other in many other organizations that have contributed uh but we we must continue to to build upon the past and and the present and going forward so let me ask sort of a a general question is that as president and leaders of three of our leading universities and colleges and and knowing that you contribute to the social cultural and economic health of your individual states and individual communities what are your ideas and needs for growing historic preservation impacts on your campuses in other words if you could leave with this national audience in perhaps an international audience with one big idea a suggestion to support your efforts what would that one big idea what would be that vision what would be that dream and let me just pigeonhole the thought too that in 2026 uh we will we will celebrate we will observe we will commemorate the good bad and indifference of the 250th anniversary of the founding of this nation i am very privileged to serve as an advisory member of a council established by the organization responsible for planning uh jointly with the states their political subdivision and others how we may commemorate in 2026 the 25th anniversary and i would like to be able to put on the table how we as a nation can stand and and salute and recommit ourselves to preserving the richness of our historically black college and universities so i would invite you to give me your vision your dream your hope that that i can care to to to the leaders in the national at the national level as to where we can individual collectively recommit ourselves to preserving again the legacy of our hbc us start with you uh dr warwick okay thank you well thank you so much i appreciate all of the insight and experience that you've shared throughout all of your time in historic preservation and certainly as an hbcu alum i was thinking while you were talking about what you said about the preservation and practice and and that's what we think about learning by doing and i was just uh you know the national trust in their saving places hbcu grant program they did provide funds to hire a an existing student to work on the planning of these projects and i think that was a great step forward in terms of getting more knowledge about historic preservation out there to these students and we just need to do more of that but the other area that i think could gain some attention would be through um environmental justice and um you know when we think about environmental justice and you think about you know like what uh logan hampton said about where our institutions are located in those communities that have uh no investment from anywhere and uh you know that's to me it's an environmental justice issue it's an environmental justice issue when we allow these historic properties to go um unrepaired and and and restored and so i think we need to have uh the historic preservation of hbcu's part of the environmental justice conversation part of the federal government's environmental justice working group uh really so we can have multiple agencies contributing to support these campuses these national treasures these landmarks that contribute not only to the national park services mission but also education energy uh environmental protection um you know health and human services you know department of defense all of these agencies have a role to play in improving the environmental justice uh at hbcu's and certainly having historic preservation as part of that that dialogue and action excellent excellent thank you very much dr hampton yes i'm i was pleased that your vision your dream i was pleased that you began that with uh dr warwick who she has uh been really my mentor and and kind of thinking big about how to engage um agencies governments etc in in helping us to solve uh our our problems i do want to uh just lift up uh this notion just to remind that that this is our this is our nation all of us it belongs to all of us and these institutions these historically black colleges and universities are all of ours they are all of our institutions and because they exist uh some would argue we have a we have a black middle class uh because they exist our nation has been sustained uh because they exist we we are an exceptional nation and as a result they these institutions deserve our investments i do want to particularly i i i neglected i'm celebrating thank you uh dr warwick for again uh reminding me that our students have been very much engaged in this process in these processes and in this conversation about historic preservation it's been a part of our historic uh for our history seminars i had two uh two seniors uh terry mckenzie and shay thompson uh who are graduates who um who established a piece and for our project with jk daniel's they've lived with jk daniel's as a as a founder uh of our of our institution just uh chase uh chase cameron uh is on the planning team uh he's a senior this year is on the planning team for the future plans of jk daniel's working with our architectural uh group i was meeting with a group of scholars about about another matter uh just just uh last week and uh the the historic uh saint paul cme church where many uh lame students of a generation attended chapel is now a building owned by the college uh it is not on the historic register and i had two students uh keith and and tiffany who who asked the question well how do we get a student how do we get a building on the historic register and how can and how can we help those students are very much interested our students are very much interested uh in this work and the the means and ways in which uh the government and others can provide um resources and opportunities for those students to engage fully uh would be helpful to us at at this level and i'll i'll yield there i know our time is getting close yes thank you very much dr wilson please all right so let me echo what both of my colleagues have said i think the ideas are quite uh original and compelling i i would just offer perhaps three things to think about um but number one uh there is no accredited uh preservation program uh at and hbcu and this particular industry is largely white and largely male and it is grossly under represented and um i'm not being self-serving i am the president but but we believe that morgan is the only uh hbcu with this kind of broad academic mission and preservation which includes training for students in architecture and landscape architecture and planning in construction management and engineering and history and museum studies and so we are seeking here to become a national leader uh in training black preservation professionals leveraging this broad academic mission of ours through the efforts of professor dale green in our school of architecture and planning who by the way is a descendant of one of our founders reverend samuel green and we are moving forward to hopefully formally establish the first historic preservation program at an hbcu in the country that's number one um number two um in terms of another kind of idea to grapple with um i uh i of course as i've said in this conversation i really began to understand uh historic preservation uh as an undergraduate student that's husky and i could not uh leave the oaths uh and uh holless verc for sale library uh and the laboratory of george washington carver i mean i i'm just oval way on the history and so uh even as an undergraduate and we would go and visit other hbcu's um i tried to connect that history that i was lived every single day but with what i was being exposed to on some of the other hbcu campuses and wow you know i could have emerged from those experiences being the most educated undergraduate student in america about african-american history without having taken 20 academic credits just from those experiences and so i would say is it worth um serious cogitation for us to think about uh something that we may call a national hbcu historic trail where the goal public private partnership may be to raise 50 billion dollars i throw that 50 billion dollars and then connect the story of if you will the maturation of america seen through the eyes of the hbcu places and map that trail out so individuals can begin to kind of travel this country uh in a very organized way be exposed to these stories if you will from china university outside of philadelphia perhaps all the way over to langston university in oklahoma right and so you put together that trail very carefully the dollars would be raised in i do think there should be i mean billions of dollars more from the federal government coming in through the national park service or through the national trust where start preservation but i think there's an opportunity here for a serious public private partnership that could have a large goal that then when that is invested on the on each of the individual campuses would go in a vernacular a hell of a long way uh in helping us to seriously protect these legacies and then at the same time create this powerful narrative that we begin to expose a large swat of america to that you know they may not depending on how things go may not even get this in the history books of their local k-12 schools if for example some of the stuff that i'm hearing that's taking place in some of these states if it were to continue that that could be wiped out of the history books and then all of a sudden what do we have a country that is bereft of a significant portion of his history and i think we need to get out in front of that and preserve these stories uh and elevate them to a higher level consciousness on the part of our nation excellent excellent let me think uh on behalf of the national trust for historical preservation you individually and collectively for your insights your wisdom your leadership your accomplishment and your unwavering commitment to stay on the journey oh this has been so so uplifted i'm privileged to serve as a member of the advisory council for the cultural heritage preservation fund under the leadership of rent and also a fellow member is the honorable jim cliber and over the course of my park service who we're working very closely with him as you know he's a graduate of South Carolina state and he's been one of the strongest supporters of the appropriations for hbcu's administered by the national park service and and over the past 20 30 years something like uh roughly under 90 million dollars have been awarded to to hbcu's and i think in this year's appropriations 10 million dollars and as long as jim i'm a congressman cliber's there i think that he'll continue to influence his colleagues uh just this has been absolutely outstanding uh and uh dr wilson i have recorded your suggestion for a national trail historic trails of hbcu's and i was privileged as the director to to administers which was approved on my watch the underground railroad network to freedom and this could be something that's similar and it will give prominence oh it would give great prominence so with your permission i'm going to take that forth as something that should be considered by my colleagues in the park service the advisory council and the trust and i like this i like this very much and i think it's uh what happened oh it is fantastic so again we could go on for days and i i hope that we'll continue to stay connected uh president wilson you made reference to oh she's her spirit burns deeply within each of us uh her legacy is not only commemorated at the place of her birth on the plantation in eastern maryland but she's also commemorated at a similar historic site in the last place of residence in new york and i speak of none other than hera tutman and uh so again i would salute you i encourage you in the words of hera tutman simply this keep going keep going when things are difficult keep going we cannot do less if we are to honor our ancestors and encourage this and future generation i am so proud and so privileged to have been a part of this family thank you very much thank you very much thank you