North Carolina Conversations Summer-Fall 2008.pdf

CaldwellAwardThe 2007 Caldwell Lecturein the HumanitiesDelivered by Tom Lambeth, October 19, 2007, at the ReynoldaHouse Museum of American Art on the Occasion of HonoringCaldwell Laureate Emily Herring WilsonOur honoree tonight,just like my mother, came to NorthCarolina from Georgia. Indeed theycame here — some years apart —from two Georgia towns separatedby only one county and 48 milesof highway.I am glad my mother came to NorthCarolina, although I must tell youshe always identified herself as aGeorgian. If she had not come, Imight not be here tonight. I might notbe in North Carolina. Indeed, I mightnot be anywhere.I am surely glad that Emily [HerringWilson] came. On the letterheadof the North Carolina HumanitiesCouncil and explicit or implicit inmuch of the work it supports, onereads “Many Stories, One People.”Emily’s career since she came tothis blessed Tar Heel land is markedby her many efforts to help peopletell their stories, and out of that shehas helped to tell the story of NorthCarolina. She has worked hard tomake us one people both freedand empowered by the tellingof many stories.So, what is the North Carolina story?Why is it worth telling? What does itstelling say about the kind of peoplewe are? How does our story fit intoour national story?Some years ago a lady of somevintage showed up to vote inRockingham County. While standingin line, she asked those around her ifthey knew what the North Carolinastate motto was and what it meant.One or two replied, “To Be Ratherthan to Seem.” One might even haveknown the Latin Esse Quam Videri.Yet, it was her translation that isremembered decades later:“It means,” she declared, “standfor something in North Carolina.”The North Carolina HumanitiesCouncil stands for something inNorth Carolina — for importantthings, for things that go to the verymarrow of our being as a state.Tonight, by our choice of recipient forthe Caldwell Award, we confirm boththe value of the award and the valueof the Council. Yet as important asthe statement we make tonight is, itis what the Council does throughoutthe year that is the best measure ofhow well we uphold the standardof that Rockingham County lady.If the Council did not exist andwe were true to our heritage as TarHeels, we would need to go outtonight and create it. In that event Iwould turn for our marching ordersnot to the inspiration of the scriptures(although they are an important andinspiring source for a discussion ofthe humanities and of what it meansto stand for something).Instead I would turn to the wordsof a North Carolina journalist, anEnglish explorer, and a Pennsylvaniafounding father. What all of themwrote and how the years haveembraced their words speak to thepurpose of the Council. For in themain what we are about as a publicbody supported in part by taxpayermoney is determining whether weas North Carolinians and we as