>> i do get want up talking about this but i think it's important. i think it shouldn't be a secret anymore and i'm really happy to watch the changes going on around us all over the world and i'm getting e-mails from hawaii and from it to go and from ireland. we are a wired world and we are very lucky at this point to deal the share real information, real medical information and to laugh together at the nonsense that we have put up with for millennia and to get angry also at the injustice that is visited on us. >> thank you all for coming. >> good morning.

i'm with the boston book fest evelyn thank you for joining us on the legacy and potential of -- of the to thank jim and kathy stone of stone family foundation for their sponsorship of this special -- developed in collaboration with the maa h. book award. i'd like to thank everyone when they register for the three events events as well that the welcome those viewers are joining us on c-span. pbs is envisioning our or station's future direction predicted help us shape of the festival will look like in the next five years a market please take five minutes to complete our free survey. you have a chance to win great prizes and most importantly you can let us know what you value and how we can better serve readers. if you'd like to purchase the book was supporting in independent oak store we have

made it easy. go to the link at the bottom of your screen and now it's like to turn things over to this morning's post the author of shelter in the time of the storm winner of the 2020 book award. >> good morning everyone. will come to the discussion entitled building a par on the legacy power and potential of organizing institution building in america. thank you to the boston book festival the museum of african-american history and the stone foundation for sponsoring us and having us here this morning. i cannot tell you how excited i am to be with you. i was just commenting that i really wish we were in person this year in boston because i'm a huge fan of historians in the work that they have put together.

i want to introduce them and at some point -- first up we have dr. martha jones who is the author of this incredible book. the society of alumni professor of history and professor of the johns hopkins university. she is a historian. those are jones is the author of this incredible book vanguard of women -- selected as one of "time" magazine 100 must-read books for 2020 and i could not agree more. her 2018 but worth are a citizen of a citizen of the history the race rights in antebellum america published in 2018 won

multiple awards and i'm not even going to try to read all the awards that one a lot. professor jones is author of all bound up together published in 2007 and she is the coeditor of --. welcome dr. jones. it's nice to virtually be with you this morning. we have this incredible book written by kate masur a professor at northwestern university and specializes in history of race politics and law in the 19th century in the united states pursues the author of the book until justice be done america's first movement from the revolution to reconstruction published by norton in 2021 and has written

other books and articles including an example for all the land emancipation of the struggle of the quality and washing in d.c. published in 2010 and she. >> the world the civil war made published in 2017. dr. kate masur name as includes been included at the near time to the "washington post" and last but not least my good friend dr. eddie ko -- eddie cole the author of the struggle for black freedom which just won by the way the association study for higher education their 2021 outstanding book award so congratulations dr. quo. he's also been featured in the "washington post" the "l.a.

times." he's also appeared on the bbc world news and c-span and in 2021 his name by educational weekly as one of the top university scholars in the u.s. to shape educational practice and policy so as you can see we are amongst some heavy hitters this morning. i'm so excited to be with all of them virtually. i have the privilege and the opportunity of holding this -- pulling this panel together. i thought about martha jones and her battle over the issue of -- unc-chapel hill over the issue and upon doing so she ultimately joined the university but upon

doing so rooted in the end capabilities of institution. this session examines the legacy and potential of it's the position of building and social movements that. >> activists assert on the frontlines or should i say in the vanguard of america's ongoing struggles for social political and economic justice. i want to open up by allowing the authors just a brief comment on how their work centers on the idea of institution building and organizing in dr. jones we will start with you. >> i want to thank you very much for the honor in joining it today and joining dr. kate masur

and dr. quo in this conversation and i appreciate the effort of the boston book festival to keep us together and keep our conversations going despite our inability to get on planes and trains in being together and not weigh so thanks so much to everybody there. what i would like to contribute by way of beginning is a reflection on why i called the book vanguard. there are many meanings and associations with the term but that's clear about what it means and the way we think about the law and the 200 plus year struggles of plaque women in the united states to secure political rights and the right to vote. i call the women in this book the vanguard because it is through their rootedness in black institutions being it

churches antislavery societies civil rights organizations and more. it is through their rootedness and their struggles within no substitutions that black women develop a political philosophy, a philosophy that today we shorthanded we refer to as intersectionality but political philosophy that for a very long time has offered a vision for u.s. put a coculture as one devoid of the scourge of racism and devoid of the scourge of sexism and this in my view is a point of view that cannot need sorted decoupled from the institutional struggles that black women wage and sometimes

rage, yes it's true but mostly wage within institutions like it. it's one of the surprises in the vanguard is this the development not only of women's public presence be they preachers or organizers and methodist and baptist communities but more on the ideas that they develop in the country -- critiques they developed there and move into the secular round and become the core of the organization like the national association of women's clubs which is to my mind the black women's suffrage association of the 19th and early 20th century. so just to close out by saying what i hope the vanguard does is

help those of us who have learned a lot whether it's in school or in culture in museums and more about the struggle for women's votes in the united states. i hope that centers a new set of institutions, black institutions that are as integral to that long struggle as those associations that most often are grounded. again thanks for the chance to be here. err kate masur if you want to center how that played out in your scholarship. >> i want to reiterate my thanks to the panelists and the austin book festival for having us here today. my book until justice be done focuses on what i call simple

rights that many people haven't been aware of that come from the era of the american revolution. i cut off my story and in a period of reconstruction and i looked at the antebellum pre- states and struggles that primarily were of african-americans but also white people had about anti-and passionately so. my -- when i started on the book i was particularly interested in the midwest because the states of ohio illinois in a particular free states that more or less free states that came into the union with explicitly anti- laws on the books that discriminated against free african-americans whose measures were designed to

discourage african-americans from migrating into these midwestern states and what i found was that african-american institutions were central to black political mobilization in these places and i was new to the study of this region one of the things that was so fascinating was as early as the first two decades of the 19th century so by 1815 and certainly into the 1820s african-americans are migrating into ohio in particular and founding their own own churches in the drop in ame churches and sometimes black baptist churches in these churches become the kind of black people's ability to mobilize and develop strategies for opposing these racist strategies for the period number three about black people were 1% of the population of the state like ohio so they were a small minority and also

forbidden from voting so the question that i'm thinking about in this book is how do they make what equal change when all these odds are stacked against you and institutions like churches are an essential place for beginning a project prodigious want to mention two other black institutions while i was working on this book in one of the effort to create a black press. the principle of the project of developing newspapers were african-americans could have their own voice in their own base forward is incredibly important for people that i write about and beginning to freedom's journal in new york. i'm very interested in the places where black newspapers find it difficult to create and sustain an african-american newspaper. the printing press was difficult to come by in subscribers were difficult to come by so these

black newspapers are evidence of independent institutions and mobilization and amazing sources as they continue to be available to us for understanding what people were trying to do both vis-à-vis the world in terms of these racist laws for example but also -- one of my favorite sources that i was able to use was a rather short-lived newspaper out of columbus ohio. that paper was published in 1843 and 44 and then it kind of went away but it was an amazing trove of what i was writing about the activism vis-à-vis the state government but also a tremendous source for what people cared about. there articles about child-rearing and a published fictions and articles about temperance or huge range of conversation and sometimes

disagreement discussion that the paper thought were important. i will stop there and i'm just looking forward to continuing the conversation. >> nicole we will posset or --. eddie kohler will turn it over to you. this is just phenomenal and the idea black institutions in particular might look focuses on black colleges and universities and specifically the people who lead these colacci's -- colleges and universities. when you think about black institutional building over time i'd like to start this conversation about recent headlines to give some connection to how i came to my book and how i'm thinking about

the book and looking beyond just black colleges but hired to case in general. this is about 2011. fast-forward to 2015 university missouri a black student as they are particular and black students were threatening to boycott an upcoming game against byu i believe that would have cost the university a million dollars to set one saturday night game. fast-forward a few more years and you look at the university of virginia charlottesville the white nationalists were on campus with their tiki torches in the year after that you remember the graffiti at howard university the historically black campuses.

those contemporary moment is always interesting because when you look at the demands that students have been making specifically the start i black institutions we think of the demand for students are making for years. these demands sounds so similar so we start to see old demands decade after decade. i started asking questions about college presidents because as you know in your work and activism especially at black colleges especially the last two years there's always a president that makes a cameo through these histories on student activism. i was curious about these responses we are seeing right now. it really gets into looking at college presidents in university chancellors. racial policies and practices both on campuses and beyond

campuses. when we think about black institution building and black americans in general a lot of our most pressing racial issues over time have been deeply intertwined with institution of higher education. you can go down the list. the book really looks at the question of governments -- which is pivotal to all of our education but especially when you think about black colleges and institutions of higher education. ..

headlines around affirmative action. we think of the most selective especially white within higher education but when you look at the origins, think about what college and their role of the federal level the white house in conversations with congress around shaking affirmative action geared toward historical plaque black colleges and universities so you think about institution building, black colleges and universities is the idea of asking of the role of college president over time shaping these policies both to advance racial equality but also oftentimes sometimes racial advancement as well so what does it mean for black institution

when you think about black institution? >> i want to jump to doctor jones, replicate make this story of how flat women broke barriers. personal and wage are not for authorities in research and not only was a brilliant move but it had enrichment in my own research for my grandfather's will, i feel i got to know him pretty intimate through his papers and that study but i regret getting to know his current model but i'll give you a chance to respond to this. it's about your great grandmother and continues to talk about family history, who's

the great-great-grandmother passed away in 1925. scholarship funds and reading, concerns and lectures in st. louis picked up her mother's manchin and her commitment to women's power into the college club. she let national and colors work. when she ported in 1936, she represented her state and the naacp convention. in 1926, they were getting into your grandpa, her own life's work. she and her husband arrived that year to do some building of their own. they would be present and

activate the partner at each turn. every time they took on cutting a ribbon and a new building for classes, depositing the check in the endowment fund, black women in leadership. she carries you to the early civil rights, raising four box office, documenting how the loss blanketed the u.s. south. a member of the church, women's division of christian service in church extension underwrote and published state laws on race and color. this was a quiet align across generation. it had truly been in your family's history the women in your family had been in that

fight. i wonder if you could expound on what that's like for you to uncover these personal family narratives and put together this can i get an invitation to the family reunion? [laughter] >> if you dare, yes. [laughter] if you dare, you are welcome. thank you for that and for that opening. the first thing to say, the very first time i attempted to write about this family, in particular the years in college, it was graduate school and was an awful paper which is to say i learned the word hagiography among these are folks who are just figures in life many of them in my mind and it's taken me many years to bring measure to individuals who are dear to me and that effective way that's the first

thing i want to say, that's part of the book intended to open that space for all of us to honor the families from which we come from of the experiences that shape us and insist they are part of u.s. history along with what was received even in african-american history there is more to know and this would encourage to continue in the work. i think the way in which this particular connects to doctor cole is educators and women educators and the possibility of education in the might be in a common school, it might be in high school, and hbc you or a place over the again and again

education is at the core of the identities but also a central place for the kind of organizing black women are doing. one of my disappointments and writings that you shared was i couldn't find my grandmother in the north carolina start archives. the women's vote in the 1920s, black and white have not been preserved so it's permissive to see the intersection between the work you do and politics of history and the powers in the state of north carolina didn't value this history and the ways we might want to tell it. i was lucky because university historians interviewed my

grandmother in the 1970s and i was able to draw on that but if i put share one more thing about the other reason we tell these stories is the archives keep coming so i have a baby sister herself was the keeper of a set of family papers and i have this box on the board to set it to you, that was one month ago. and it finally i found my grandmother's voter registration document that had been there all along so my last message to folks, the shoeboxes two cases, the trunks and more are the building blocks of these institutional histories because they haven't always been valued and we can do that work together so i appreciate you looking at. >> one of my fragile professors

once used the phrase identification of american history. it's a way to describe how americans have preferred who we are as a nation as opposed to confronting bitter realities and i think one of the oldest and dearest myths particularly the antebellum era, this notion that the north was a paradise of free blacks in contrast to the evils of slavery in the south. your book does a brilliant job confronting and further dispelling that ms., can you expound on the legacy of racial hostility and white terrorism in the north how it made building block institutions even more? >> thank you for that question. let me speak to it somewhat

directly, as i write about here particularly in respect to the southern tier of midwestern dates, but you and many other places as well, these places that bordered on the ohio river, african-americans encountered white people in a variety of different ways did not want them to be part of their community so we see this and all kinds of ways, i write a little bit and martha had also written about the colonization society, an organization that was very widespread in the 1820s that appealed to a lot of the members so you find very prominent white people advocating this ideal force was the idea that, and it several different kinds for the fundamental idea that this

country could never be a place where free african-americans would thrive or be part of our democracy and this idea three black people were a problem in some ways more than enslaved people because we black people were needed for the agricultural economy so people were not necessarily talking about abolishing slavery but problematic class in the united states so many of whom whom the north advocated african-americans should be in liberia for a place for people to go. racially discriminatory laws iteration of similar idea which is free african-americans are not really wanted here, states passed laws that require black people to register with local

officials and they've prohibited them from testifying in court cases involving right evil and bar black children from public schools and you are talking about -- i'm so sorry, since we were talking about education, i want to touch on that and black men could vote in these were designed to send a message that african-americans were not welcome to migrate into these northern states. as you mentioned in addition was an extra legal violent mob action that white people sometimes took sporadically and unpredictably against their black neighbors so in cincinnati in 1829 from of many african-americans moved there from a law requiring to register with local officials to not enforce people building sufficient and slows for their children and summer of 1829, a white community set you're going to start enforcing these laws so everybody's better register and

if you don't, you have to leave the city. in the middle of this threat began to enforce the law, the white community had basically attacked the black and burned down buildings against the black community which ends up resulting in about half the african-american population either for other places in ohio, some moved to canada so these are some of the areas african-americans faced. when they moved into these states -- i want to also add, and this is sort of complicate it but yet so important, i think we need a complex view of his history so i can get some areas off the hook and act like it's paradise so there are circles in academia that think of the white north being one 100% racist,

irredeemably so in the south, people wouldn't encounter a better life they had i don't think that is quite right either, african-americans moved to ohio, is in 1843 black convention in rochester and ohio representative to that convention advocates for more african-american migration into the midwest and they say we can have farms here, he may have heard about these but they are not really that bad. you can farm independently, we are starting our own school so you have to hold two things together at the same time, many people, resources i found who migrated into a free state like ohio felt freer in ohio than kentucky for example or virginia so it's a nuanced story but certainly not a story of an

innocent white north compared to the south, that's for certain. >> it's shipped over here quickly, doctor, your book piqued my interest about the legacy of institution building and how space matters, the space we build can either generate an equity or harbored intolerance and hostility and higher education. universities often think in those personas, the energy and vision of their chief administrators, you opened your book with a story of martin, who had a story career as a scholar and administrator and one served as president of the university, a black college located after. it is absolutely intentional in

his work and study on the race question, dedicated his entire career to it and politics from the space he has to build in contrast throughout the rest of your book, many of his peers you talk about our pure reactionary at best and improvement at worst confronted with the color line and as you phrase it, at least prepare to take it which is where your book begins. would you agree with the assessment, what does that tell us about the administrator's role building institutions that issue intolerance and racism. >> that's a phenomenal question and thank you for catching onto that. even my decision starting with jenkins, i appreciate that.

i do agree with you especially when you think about these other chances i wrote about throughout the book after opening up the work in baltimore and for those of you in other contexts from i write about a number of dominant white institutions as well. thinking about the broader black freedom of movement and activism and questions around race across the united states, all institutions from northeast midwest, west coast and the u.s. in south, jenkins definitely stands out in reactionary would be a kind way of putting it for some of these. so i do agree with that but it tells us so much about the role of academic administrators specifically the college president and building spaces and our broader space in building. i think about building space

what jenkins was able to do in two parts. one is the physical space, we have to understand black college, black university existing was not something that was naturally just going to happen. there was resistance along the way especially when you started having black leaders and black institutions because there's a history to where a lot of these institutions, which initially started as a private institution and it becomes a public university like addicts today so you've got white academic leaders and educators, shocked at black colleges, a significant number of them so the role of the administrator's comes in two parts, you see jenkins dedicate most of his presidency, capitol and on behalf of the institution and building buildings taking decades to do so.

what it means when we talk about this infused within historically black colleges, they have to be so much for people to gather so the physical space and as traders have in that part but also what i hear you asking is the other part is the intellectual space which is critical. jenkins was so in tune with what it meant in those spaces and to do so, he is very savvy and using networks that i write about in the book talking about these public networks and quiet networks to build out intellectual space for these black students because that was critical in segregation in maryland and beyond so he becomes our national voice in a quiet way history has always remembered becomes national

voice and advising and consulting with other black college presidents and advising both federal officials and maryland state officials on issues that pertain to segregating university of maryland because policies pertaining to segregating right institutes in seven states that impacted actions unfolding on black institutions as well serve just as much as i phone and initiatives as well but here's something i write about toward the end of the chapter, he understands the importance of black women and he stands out compared to a number of his contemporary academic leaders have narrow conceptions of both the women and democracy building, institution building. jenkins has all of these meetings, the presence house on

a recurring basis speaking at the national convention, a number of federal ways to move forward. 1966, he makes his way to greensboro and the inauguration in his grandfather's successor. a black woman president of the college, jenkins basing it down because he has to be there and through this entire time, he leverages social and political relationships for black women that plays a role in 1954 governor's race in maryland and it's so significant within the book because the president of the university is so frustrated with elected officials not working harder to withdraw control room itself and bend it over to the need control

university of maryland but he decides to run for in favor of the other candidate so this is so significant and he understands this. that is a testament to the administrator's world and building space both physical space but also intellectual space that allows for an institution building to happen. >> a few questions have worked their way into the chat and i want to work in these questions as well. one of the challenges building black institutions in a capitalistic society?

i'm going to put the as as a free-for-all. >> i'll jump in to say from some of my earlier work which looks at back activists in baltimore but in the 19th century one of the things that really frames the story is really baltimore is a city without black capitol clash. in some senses it cuts into ways, on the one hand it means to tell the story of a city like baltimore is to engage early black politics and baltimore, it's institutions to tell a story perhaps closer to the ground than we might tell and

other locales like new orleans or philadelphia on the one hand i think unfortunately, when it sets the stage for his a philanthropic paternalistic relationship between white and black baltimore, white and black marylanders has legacies that in baltimore this afternoon from legacies we still feel until this day so i think back tension on the one hand, the kind of autonomy, the independence of thought and direction that was critical but a higher education landscape on the u.s. doesn't know another way than philanthropy is a critical part of the story. at the same time, i am still thinking about vanguard and what it means for a woman to lead the

college at the height of the civil rights revolution, one of the stories is when in 1958 martin luther king junior is slated to come, there's not an institution in the city of greensboro willing to host doctor king because this will require a mixed audience. it is doctor player put at risk i think her relationship to a capitol class both in greensboro but i think nationally in that moment it suggests what her institution out of dance for an abstract ways but how to use the literal space of the chapel on

that campus to insist upon a different kind of social political configuration and many had been willing to risk or insist upon so there are moments of extraordinary courage despite the relationship to capitalism and philanthropy hbcus leaders move forward. >> we are running a little short on time, not terribly so but i want to work in this other question, i'm going to throw this out, i think it is a great segue from where you just left off. this next question from the audience, the word institution inherently suggests certain kind of organization and do the organizations, if black, have an inherent dilemma of trying to

establish something black focused while navigating white space? >> i'm not sure but i guess many of the black institutions we've been talking about have been important, as everybody has kind of eliminated in creating spaces in this country with its history of slavery and racism, the spaces institutes create are important and special and different because they are black institutions so black churches in early ohio, these were places as people on the panel no where people could have meeting, black

churches in the early days served all kinds of purposes from a place to worship to a place to gather socially to a place to have school, or a political meeting. places where white people were sometimes invited in if they were political allies, a powerful example that came out in my research was a big meeting in chicago in 1850, the first ame chapel in chicago to develop a strategy for resisting that playback and it was a black congregation that hosted the meeting. many powerful white people from the city were at that particular meeting because it was an issue of great importance for the entire city and they have come up with a strategy that involved black patrols of the city to look out for it and the city council taking a resolution to refuse to cooperate with the

playback so making a chicago a sanctuary city at that time and that originated in the chapel. there is a complexity and the idea that these institutions are somewhat by definition oppositional to racism and segregation while at the same time as we have seen, it's not the only work these institutions do so they are also cases of community development, collaboration of joy and mobilization in different kinds of ways so they can be both at the same time. >> i think you did very well. do you want to expound on back? >> i will take that briefly to echo this, the institution

that's a great question from the audience, the word institution is complex, something i've been taking in lately is institutions within institutions so when you talk about dual purpose of multipurpose of an institution, we may be referring to an abstract of the institution. a specific purpose for it. ...

>> mistakes in the institution over all in this movement. and i think that it is with this question, building spaces. and do you have a responsibility in governing and celebrating tolerance. to that end i would like to come back to you, once again, doctor jones. and i would like to have you expound upon it. your family have a very deep and personal connection and there is a passage here that i have to highlight and get you to sort of speak on it. and it says in 1942. [inaudible] there are two versions of the

story. both begin with the 1922 mayoral election. whether or not to establish local high school for black students. they openly organize black voter turnout, clan members threatened to stop in and destroy the school. and one version of the story says that on a election eve, -- and i'm just overwhelmed that the motions here. parks on the campus as students stood on the campus alone. she had stood like centuries across the ground. the mob trespassed without leaving a mark on the campus or the leadership. the following morning she remained a watchful presence

there throughout the day. she goes on to highlight. and we talked about talk about the legacy of these types of women about standing in the gap for black liberation. and again, being a vanguard of paving the way. if you could just speak to that legacy and what that can inform us and tell us about the long legacy of black women who play that type of role. >> thank you so much for bringing this into this conversation because i feel that she is running through so much of this. one in 1875 during reconstruction, from 1955 into the modern civil rights revolution. what an article life. why is she so critical to this conversation? she begins as an educator. she builds what is today cookman university as a girls school in daytona, florida. this while she is leaving

suffrage activism and the national association of colored women's club. and it reminds us of how essential it has been for black women to be nimble because when it is too dangerous as it does become in florida to do directly organizing with voting rights, the system comes to washington and by the 1930s she is going to help franklin roosevelt organize the black cabinet and help us use the power of the presidential appointment to bring black americans to washington with rules of consequence to generation. she will be there at the founding of the u.n. in a remarkable figure that teaches us not to sit down but that we should find the work around.

probably everybody or many of you know that this assumes figure is about to be installed in the capitol rotunda as part of the statuary construction, replacing the officer that had long represented the state of florida. she continues to do important work for us even today. >> yes, absolutely. we have a few more minutes and i would like to come back to you so that we can read a passage from your scholarship as well and get you to weigh an opponent. we think about the concepts of white supremacy and i think one of the things that the book does so incredibly well is that it highlights the nature and the pervasive nature and how this works into our political dna and it also highlighted black

institutions. and under the volatile conditions that prevailed in many parts of ohio. organizing occurs in churches and other areas, many are difficult to see and it was established in cincinnati in 1815. and by 1833 more than 20 churches with a total of around 700 people. after chillicothe formed, pronouncing it in the local newspaper. many were in freemasonry and helping to organize society whatever they could. black men and women helped fugitives make their way to safety, sometimes making it all the more remarkable after

america mobilized to petition the ohio general assembly this was cool as for their children. so we lift up and we recognize the legacy of black institution building and how these institutions were vital in advancing the dreams of others. and conversely i would like to ask about what this is meaning in regarding to the history of the early republic and reverberating throughout our society today. this is one of the key arguments in one of the principal arguments and i think it speaks volumes that this concept with the jones project has been so vilified as well as rejected by mainstream white america. so the focus of this has continued, i'm wondering if you could speak about the legacy of

white institution building in america and their role perpetuating some of these ideas. >> thank you for asking the question in precisely that way. white institution building in regards to institution building and these were primarily designed by white people for white people and they had reluctantly at best a minute by people and other people of color, but this is the world that we live in. and i guess i want to be very brief because we are almost at the end of time. but i would say what we are up to, and i don't want to speak for others, but we are talking about the real history of the united states. you know, this is not critical race theory although critical race theory has a very important set of ideas and looking at the

world. the one we feel that kind of reaction, increasingly teaching the history of white supremacy, the variation in it as well as what was against it. i think that it is just another manifestation of how far we have to go and as doctor jones has said, to keep going, to insist upon what we are doing here which is telling the real history here. >> i hate that we have run short at this time, but thank you so much for this incredible panel. your work and the work of others here, doctor jones, others. justice be done.

highlighting the legacy of institution building in america and around building spaces that again embrace the concept of tolerance and justice. it is such a necessity. i would like to thank you all for joining us and i am overwhelmingly joyous about this structure. >> that wraps up our custody of the boston book festival. watch this with the book fairs tab when you click on it online. now, more television for serious readers. >> hello, my name is nathan and of everyone i would like to welcome you here in nashville, tennessee. whether you are watching us online for joining us, we are glad that you are with