Constitution Day in Hillsborough

I'm delighted to announce that Robert Ireland and I will be speaking at the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church on September 17 at a Constitution Day celebration sponsored with the Orange County Historical Museum.  Close readers of this blog may recall that the Orange County Historical Museum is in a building once known as the "Confederate Memorial" Library up in Hillsborough.  And that it was the subject of a renaming controversy recently.  The Historical Museum's building is on a site of much importance -- back in 1788 the North Carolina legislature met there to discuss ratification of the Constitution.  They could not agree and ratification took place later in Fayetteville.  Robert will be talking about the ratification of the Constitution and then I'm going to pick up with the current controversy over Confederate symbols and the conflicting values at stake in preserving, modifying, or removing names and monuments from public property.  The Hillsborough Presbyterian Church is a perfect place to talk about the use of exhumation in the controversies over memory.  One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence who was buried in the churchyard was exhumed and moved out to Greensboro.  This should be really interesting and if you're in the neighborhood I hope you'll join us.  It's September 17, from 7 to 8:30, 102 West Tryon Street in Hillsborough.