An Uncommon Celebration of What We Have "InCommon"
As I write this welcome, it is the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. As I revisited the images and listened to the news accounts from that fateful day in August 2005, a phrase began to float through my mind: “a house divided…” I began to remember, and then question: Was it Abraham Lincoln who coined the phrase? With a little research, I confirmed that it was indeed Lincoln, and I also discovered it was part of the title of an address given by the man who was then the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois to the delegates of the state Republican convention on June 16, 1858. Lincoln lost that race to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, but his speech, “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand,” became the underpinning for the dismantling of the heinous institution of slavery over which Lincoln was destined to preside.
It is vexing to me that a speech given in 1858 is just as relevant today as it was almost 150 years ago. In many ways we are still a house divided – as a nation, a community and a university. It is fitting that Katrina: After the Storm – Civic Engagement Through Arts, Humanities and Technology is the September event in the year-long Year of InFormation, a series of events supported by HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory). Our theme under the HASTAC Year of InFormation umbrella is "InCommon," and it is fitting, since Katrina: After the Storm at its core is about discovering what we have in common—values, dreams, even fears. In the process, we discover our common humanity.
Creativity is the essence of this humanity; our creative spirits and need to express ourselves are uniquely part of the human experience. Perhaps that creativity can be a starting point, a place where we can begin to heal the heartache caused by Katrina and similar tragedies. Perhaps by celebrating our creativity, we honor something that we all have "InCommon," and begin to break down the barriers that stand between us.
It was this spirit of creativity and a belief in the power of creativity that brought together the Katrina planning committee and infused us with a sense of purpose and excitement. We came together with different backgrounds, ethnic identities, beliefs, ideologies, talents, and academic disciplines to create something distinctive.
We had a vision that our Katrina Summit would kick off the campus' year-long Martin Luther King Jr. celebration while further advancing the social justice dialogue that was initiated with the MLK 2006 Celebration quilt, “A Single Garment of Destiny: Our Common Threads”.
Our goal was to bring together our campus community with communities across the nation for an exciting, compelling, and earnest dialogue that could help us understand what really happened along the Gulf Coast last year. How and why did we fail to maintain community and commonality in the aftermath of Katrina? How can our common humanity—our need to express ourselves, reflect and connect—mend the community fabric when it is torn apart? Once we found ourselves deep into the process of working together on the summit, we learned that we too would need to live out the message we were promoting: that together, we can face every community's storm.
We realized we needed to put aside our differences and leave our preconceived notions, baggage and egos at the door. It was, and still is, a learning process for all of us; a journey that moved us beyond rhetoric. It is our hope that you will be informed and entertained in the next few days. But more importantly, we hope you will be moved to set aside differences and celebrate what we hold "InCommon," what makes us human, and what gives us hope.
In that spirit, we welcome you and invite you to savor the "gumbo" we've put together.
Allison Clark, Ph.D.
Chair, Katrina: After the Storm
