[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 13, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H13836-H13839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE NAMING OF EMANCIPATION HALL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perlmutter). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Jackson) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, let me first begin by 
expressing my support of a suspension bill that was offered to this 
body by Mr. Clyburn, Mr. Miller and the ranking minority member on 
education to help provide emergency funding for Historically Black 
Colleges and Universities that are seeking some bridge loans for 
construction projects.
  I think that my remarks today in the 60 minutes that I have been 
allotted under the Speaker's announced policy are very consistent with 
the historical concept and circumstances for which that bill will be 
passed into law and hopefully signed by the President of the United 
States.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, we have come to this temple of democracy on this 
momentous occasion to write a new chapter in the unfolding story of 
human freedom. Today this body passed H.R. 3315, a bill to name the 
Visitor Center great hall Emancipation Hall, offered by the gentleman 
from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), and the gentleman from Illinois, myself, Mr. 
Jackson.
  The event of emancipation marks one of the most, if not the most 
significant event in American history, and so too, at least from my 
perspective, was the passage of this bill. Unfortunately under the 
rule, it did not afford Members of Congress the opportunity to have a 
broader discussion about the significance and the importance of this 
bill. But I do want to take this time to remind the Nation of the 
importance of this period and to reflect upon it during this 
Thanksgiving season.
  Emancipation was more than an act; it was a process. Emancipation was 
not a date but a period. Emancipation was not an event but the 
fulfillment of providence that the Arc of history may be long, but it 
bends towards justice and human freedom. When the American Civil War 
erupted, both North and South defended their cause as morally just, 
legally right and constitutionally sound. Northerners and southerners 
saw themselves as true Americans following in the tradition of the 
footsteps of the Founding Fathers. North and South used the 
Constitution as the source of their moral and their legal authority for 
conducting a war against the other. Both sides saw themselves as 
standing in the tradition of the American Revolution. Each side 
contended that it was fighting for freedom and liberty, though certain 
facts contradicted the beliefs of both. The South said it was fighting 
to preserve freedom while protecting the institution of slavery. The 
North said it was fighting for liberty while not initially fighting to 
grant liberty to the slaves.
  President Abraham Lincoln, our 16th President's address to the 
Sanitary Fair in Baltimore on April 18, 1864, summed up the quandary. 
He said, and I quote, ``We all declare for liberty; but in using the 
same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word 
`liberty' may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and 
the product of his labor, while with others, the same word may mean for 
some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other 
men's labor. Here are two not only different but incompatible things, 
called by the same name, `liberty.' And it follows that each of these 
things is, by their respective parties,'' President Lincoln goes on to 
say, ``called by two different and incompatible names, `liberty' and 
`tyranny.' ''
  He then went on to say, ``The shepherd drives the wolf from the 
sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, 
while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of 
liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and 
the wolf are not agreed upon the definition of the word `liberty'; and 
precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, 
even in the North, and all profess to love liberty.''
  Today, women, lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered Americans, 
African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and students see in the 
word ``liberty'' one thing. Today for the Titans of Industry, it still 
means quite another. For the dispossessed, it means for each person to 
do with himself as they please. For the Titans it means for them to do 
as they please with other men and the product of their labor anywhere 
in the world.
  As Lincoln said, ``And it follows that each of the things is, by the 
respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, 
`liberty' and `tyranny.' ''
  That is why efforts to name the great hall Liberty Hall will settle 
for some but still not settle for others the fundamental question of 
human freedom in the American historical context. For millions of 
Americans to pass through Emancipation Hall and not Liberty Hall is an 
important acknowledgment about the process for attaining human freedom 
in our context as Americans.
  Lincoln understood for his time and ours that we must not be confused 
about the language and the process of human freedom.

                              {time}  2115

  Much has been said about Lincoln and his ambivalence about 
emancipation. I believe when placed in the greater context, clarity 
emerges in Lincoln's calculation of emancipation. In 1862, Lincoln's 
announced support of colonization, along with his lack of public 
support for emancipation, was generating sometimes vicious attacks from 
militant abolitionists, including a ``Prayer for 20 Millions'' 
editorial urging emancipation that appeared in Horace Greeley's New 
York Tribune. On August 22, a month after the private announcement to 
his Cabinet on July 22 that he intended to issue an Emancipation 
Proclamation, Lincoln replied to Greeley's editorial with a masterfully 
written open letter. Here's what our 16th President had to say:
  ``If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could 
at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be 
those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time 
destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount objective in 
this struggle is to save the Union, and it is either to save or to 
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing a single 
slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all of the 
slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and 
leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery, 
and colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; 
and what I forebear, I forebear because I do not believe it would help 
to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am 
doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe 
doing more will help the cause.''
  Lincoln was reiterating his central thesis, that the purpose of the 
war was preservation of the Union, but in light of the intransigence of 
the border States, he was publicly hinting that he might have to do 
something more, including emancipation to save the Union. In this open 
letter, Lincoln was saying ``if,'' but he had already concluded in his 
mind ``that'' the only way to save the Union was to free the slaves.

[[Page H13837]]

  After the emancipation proposal became public, President Lincoln 
sometimes was ridiculed in public political oratory and newspaper 
editorials about his Emancipation Proclamation, which would free the 
slaves only where the President had no power to do so, those States in 
rebellion, but he preserved the institution of slavery everywhere he 
did have the power, those border States that chose to stay in the 
Union.
  But Lincoln's enemies either misunderstood the President, lacked the 
understanding of the Constitution, or ignored his politics. On saving 
the Union, Lincoln had additional flexibility under the Constitution. 
Politically, he could sometimes get away with violating it by engaging 
in arbitrary arrests and suspending the writ of habeas corpus. On the 
question of ending slavery, however, Lincoln saw no such flexibility. 
His understanding of the Constitution committed him to acting within 
both it and the law, for neither had yet been changed. Under the 
Constitution, slavery was still legal in the United States.
  On the first question, Lincoln and all Republicans of that era agreed 
that a 13th amendment outlawing slavery must be added to the 
Constitution. The Senate quickly passed such an amendment; but the 
House, which had gained 34 Democrats in the 1862 mid-term elections, 
was opposed. Lincoln understood, if others didn't, that issuing the 
Emancipation Proclamation would convert a struggling Union Army, trying 
to hold a Nation together, into an army of liberation to free the 
slaves. The newly freed slaves could help win the struggle by fighting 
along the Union forces and soldiers.
  Of course, the liberation of the slaves would only happen, and only 
happen if the North won the war. Militant abolitionists still thought 
the proclamation weak; Southerners thought it an outrage, but most 
antislavery advocates, both black and white, understood its 
revolutionary implications. It was the one act that changed the entire 
character of the war. It gave the war a moral purpose, human freedom, 
to bolster the political goal of saving the Union, and a purpose with 
such deep emotional power condemned the Confederacy to sure defeat.
  The question now was, having transformed the conflict into a war of 
liberation, would the Northern soldiers still fight? Some said no. ``An 
Ohio Democrat amended the party's slogan to proclaim, `the Constitution 
as it is, the Union as it was, the N-I-G-G-E-R-S where they are.' '' 
But most said yes. ``A Democratic private in the Army of the Potomac 
whose previous letters railed against abolitionists and blacks now 
expressed support for putting away any institution if by doing so it 
will put down the rebellion, for I hold that nothing should stand in 
the way of the Union, the N-I-G-G-E-R-S, nor anything else.''
  With the July 4, 1863, victory at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Northern 
hopes rose and Southern spirits sank. The burial at Gettysburg nearly 
144 years ago this month was originally planned for October 23, but 
rescheduled to November 19 because the principal orator, Edward Everett 
of Massachusetts, could not be ready before then. Lincoln, by 
comparison was casually invited to attend and make a few remarks. ``No 
insult was intended. Federal responsibility or participation was not 
assumed then in State activities. Lincoln took no offense. Though 
specifically invited to deliver only `a few appropriate remarks' to 
open the cemetery, he meant to use this opportunity. The partly 
mythical victory at Gettysburg was important to his administration's 
war propaganda.''
  There are mythical accounts that Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address 
on the back of an envelope. Even though the 272-word speech probably 
took less than 3 minutes to deliver, interrupted with applause five 
times by 20,000 in attendance, such cavalier preparation would have 
been totally uncharacteristic of President Lincoln, who took such 
opportunities seriously and chose his words very carefully.
  Lincoln intended to use this occasion and this speech to lift the 
Nation's eyes above the death and the carnage of Gettysburg ``to a 
level of abstraction that purges it of grosser matter.'' Lincoln did 
for the whole Civil War what he accomplished for the 
single battlefield.'' He transformed its meaning and, in doing so, 
transformed what it meant to be an American.

  Lincoln mentioned neither slavery nor Gettysburg in the Gettysburg 
address. He drained his speech of all of the particulars in order to 
lift up an ideal. Lincoln intended to create something good and new out 
of this tragic and bloody episode. Both North and South strove to 
interpret Gettysburg to further their own war interests. Lincoln was 
after an even bigger victory, winning the ideological as well as the 
military war, and I believe he succeeded. The Civil War today is, to 
most Americans, what Lincoln wanted it to mean. Words had to complete 
the work of the guns.
  What is it that President Lincoln had to say on that occasion? He 
said: ``Four score and seven years ago,'' and this is a 3\1/2\ minute 
speech. In fact, Martin Luther King delivered the ``I have a dream 
speech'' in about 13\1/2\ minutes. So my thinking is anytime someone 
speaks, they should speak between 3\1/2\ minutes and 13 minutes. If 
they give a speech longer than that, well, they are really giving 
history a fit. Also, if you can't say it between Gettysburg and ``I 
have a dream,'' it probably shouldn't be said at all.
  So let's see what Lincoln had to say at Gettysburg, 3\1/2\ minutes: 
``Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this 
continent,'' November 19, 1863, right around the time we are trying to 
break for Thanksgiving, 144th anniversary, and let's reflect, 144 years 
ago. ``Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this 
continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the 
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a 
great Civil War testing whether that Nation, or any Nation so conceived 
and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of 
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final 
resting place for those here who gave their lives that the Nation might 
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.'' I 
love this part: ``But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot 
consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and 
dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our power to 
add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we 
say here but it can never forget what they did here.'' That is his 
message to the future, that we should not forget what happened there.
  ``It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the 
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so far nobly 
advanced.
  ``It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us . . . that we here highly resolve that these dead 
shall not have died in vain . . . that this Nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the 
people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.''
  When we wave the flag and celebrate on July 4, Independence Day, we 
are not so much celebrating our American-ness in terms of our 
independence from England. We are celebrating the meaning of the flag 
and America as Lincoln interpreted them in his Gettysburg Address, 
because July 4, 1776, only white males could vote, and then they had to 
be landowners.
  On July 4, 1863, with the Northern victory at Gettysburg and the 
Northern victory at Vicksburg, Abraham Lincoln saw an opportunity to 
reinterpret what July 4 would mean for the future. So when we barbecue 
on July 4, and when we celebrate our Independence Day, when we look at 
Hillary Clinton running for President; Barack Obama; Mitt Romney, a 
Mormon running for President, none of this was possible on July 4, 
1776. An African American running for President on July 4, 1776, was a 
different America. A woman running for President on July 4, 1776, was a 
different America. Barack Obama running for President, Mitt Romney, a 
Mormon running for President on July 4, 1776, a different America.
  Abraham Lincoln says this July 4, 1863, is going to yield a new birth 
of freedom for all Americans and we will never look at July 4 again 
because July 4 will never be the July 4 that it used to be because we 
are en route to being a different America.
  At Gettysburg, Lincoln reinterpreted the Constitution. Looking past 
slavery

[[Page H13838]]

in the Constitution, he appealed to the Declaration of Independence and 
its claim that all men are created equal. Conservative political heirs 
to this outrage still attack Lincoln for subverting the Constitution at 
Gettysburg.
  Let's see what Garry Wills had to say about this. He said that 
Lincoln is here not only to sweeten the air at Gettysburg but to clear 
the infected atmosphere of American history itself, tainted with 
official sins and inherited guilt. He would cleanse the Constitution, 
not as William Lloyd Garrison had, by burning an instrument that 
countenanced slavery. He altered the document from within, by an appeal 
from its letter to the spirit, subtly changing the recalcitrant stuff 
that legal compromise, bringing it to its own indictment. By implicitly 
doing this, he performed one of the most daring acts of open-air 
sleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting. Everyone in that 
vast throng of 20,000 people who heard Abraham Lincoln on that day had 
their intellectual pocket picked. The crowd departed with a new thing 
in its ideological luggage, that new Constitution Lincoln has 
substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off 
from those curving graves on that hillside at Gettysburg, under a 
changed sky, and into a different America. Lincoln has revolutionized 
the revolution, giving people a new past to live with what would change 
their future and our future indefinitely.
  Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was transforming the United States of 
America from a plural to a singular noun, from the United States 
``are'' into the United States ``is'' a free government.

                              {time}  2130

  According to Gary Wills, Lincoln, by his words and his actions, 
converted the Union from a mystical hope into a constitutional reality.
  Looking out over the extraordinary events of 1863, on October 3, 
1863, realizing that the North had made substantial progress in 
Gettysburg and substantial progress in Vicksburg, and Robert E. Lee, 
the Democrats, troops were on the retreat throughout the South, and he 
saw an opportunity to make an extraordinary period for which all of us 
are grateful even to this day.
  On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the following, Mr. 
Speaker, proclamation:
  ``By the President of the United States.
  ``A proclamation.
  ``The year that is drawing towards its close,'' and I quote, ``has 
been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. 
To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to 
forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which 
are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and 
soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever 
watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of 
unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign 
states to invite and promote their aggression, peace has been preserved 
with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been 
respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except the 
theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly 
contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful 
diversions of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful industry 
to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle or the 
ship. The ax has enlarged the boarders of our settlements, and the 
mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals have 
yielded,'' this is in spite of a civil war, they have ``yielded even 
more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, 
notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camps, the siege 
and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of 
augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of 
years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor 
hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the 
gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in 
anger for our sins has nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to 
me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and 
gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and with one voice by the 
whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in 
every part of the United States, and those who are at sea and those who 
are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last 
Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our 
beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them 
that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such 
singular deliverance and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence 
for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender 
care all those who have become,'' because of the Civil War, ``widows, 
orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife which we 
are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the intervention of the 
Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of our Nation and to restore it as 
soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full 
enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
  ``In testimony whereof, I have heretofore set my hand and caused the 
Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
  ``Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the 
Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
  ``By the President: Abraham Lincoln.''
  Thanksgiving has nothing to do with the Pilgrims and the Native 
Americans. Thanksgiving is looking out over a national disaster, a war 
over Federalism between the big government in Washington and the States 
and the fact that the slaves had been freed and the Northern armies 
were in pursuit through Vicksburg and Gettysburg, and Abraham Lincoln 
said the Nation is going to be preserved. And we deserve to give the 
person who is responsible for its preservation the greatest thanks, 
God, and therefore every third Thursday in November is set aside as a 
national day of thanks to remember the path that we took to save the 
Union. That is what Abraham Lincoln was after.
  I haven't quite figured out yet why national memory has bypassed this 
event and decided to somehow ascribe it to events that have absolutely 
nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln's proclamation. The very first 
Thanksgiving was about the Civil War and about emancipation.
  The same can be said for the story of our Capitol. From the moment a 
visitor enters this building, the unfolding process of emancipation, 
the players in the drama, the actors, the people, the heroes. The 
``sheroes'' have been hidden. They have been denied a fair and accurate 
account of these unfolding events.
  When you enter the Capitol Rotunda, we look up at the ceiling and we 
see the story of America, from Columbus all the way around the Rotunda 
to the Wright Brothers, from Columbus to the Wright Brothers, and not a 
single African American in the Rotunda's mural of the story of America. 
From Columbus to the Wright Brothers.
  In Statuary Hall, the Old House Chamber, emancipation is ignored in 
Statuary Hall, where there today are status of the honored dead of the 
Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis is there, the greatest traitor 
in American history. Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton 
Stephens has his statue there. Confederate General Robert E. Lee is 
there, in uniform. Confederate Commander Joseph Wheeler is there, in 
uniform.
  In that room, Old Statuary Hall, is where States were admitted to the 
Union, one free and one slave, to keep the balance between the North 
and the South, so that the House of Representatives and the Senate 
would never have more Members than any regional faction of the country.
  Yet for the millions of visitors, Mr. Speaker, who come through our 
Statuary Hall, we never tell them that story. We would rather talk to 
the floor and show them that the Chamber has acoustic capabilities that 
allow us to talk to the floor and watch our voices bounce off the 
ceiling and arrive somehow on the other side of the room.
  In the Old Senate Chamber, Charles Sumner got beaten half to death by 
Preston Brooks, and a book still sits on Charles Sumner's desk, the 
central story in the Old Senate Chamber.

[[Page H13839]]

  The Old Senate Chamber doubled as the Supreme Court Chamber while the 
Supreme Court was under construction. It was in the Old Senate Chamber 
that Plessy v. Ferguson was decided, the Old Supreme Court Chamber. Of 
all of the decisions made in that room, it is known for two decisions 
under Justice Taney's leadership: Dred Scott and the Amistad Africans.
  So whether it is the Rotunda, from Columbus to the Wright Brothers; 
whether it is Old Statuary Hall where people visit our Capitol and are 
taught about the acoustics of the building and not about how States 
were admitted to the Union to keep the balance between North and South 
or why all the Confederate generals have their statues in Statuary 
Hall; whether it is the Old Senate Chamber, Charles Sumner getting 
beaten, caned half to death by Preston Brooks and the Plessy v. 
Ferguson decision; or whether it is the Old Supreme Court Chamber, 
where Dred Scott and the Amistad Africans, Joseph Cinque and the 
others, were told they could go back home, only parts of the story are 
told, when they are told.
  Mr. Speaker, it is the emancipation process, process, process, not an 
event, not a date, not a time, it is the emancipation process that led 
to the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
  And as descendants of slaves, we believe that as Americans are better 
educated on this history, that that process, that American process, 
that process that we cannot change, it is part of our history, as more 
Americans are educated about that process, that it will lead to our 
28th Amendment, our 29th Amendment, our 30th Amendment: health care for 
all, education of equal high quality for all, a cleaner environment for 
all, fixing our Nation's voting system for all, providing equality for 
all people, especially women. It is our Nation's historical process, 
and only that process that can provide emancipation for all. Not 
liberty. Emancipation.
  Mr. Speaker, interpreting Lincoln's work and his life is extremely 
important. Recently there have been questions raised as to whether 
Lincoln should be credited with freeing the slaves. The argument goes, 
given some of Lincoln's history, his racial attitudes and statements, 
his moderate views on the subject, his noninterference with slavery 
where it already existed, his one proposed solution of colonization, 
his gradualist approach to ending the institution, his hesitancy with 
respect to issuing the emancipation and using colored troops in the 
war, his late conversion to voting rights for blacks and more, why 
should he be given credit for freeing the slaves?
  Some have even argued that it was the various actions taken by the 
slaves themselves, including the power given to the Union causes as a 
result of the moral calls for overturning slavery, plus the actual 
military role of working and fighting in Union campaigns that actually 
freed them. By forcing the emancipation issue on to the agenda, first 
of military officers, then of Congress, and finally of Lincoln, it was 
their actions that led to freedom.
  Clearly, just as Congress and Lyndon Johnson would not have been able 
to sign the civil rights legislation of the 1960s apart from a modern 
civil rights and human rights movement, so too the military commanders, 
the Congress and Lincoln, would not have been able to achieve what they 
did without agitation and movement from the slaves and their allies. On 
the other hand, the slaves would not have become freed men, apart from 
what these leaders did.
  Because historical interpretation has played up the role of white 
male leaders, while playing down the role of mass movement and leaders 
of color and women, our understanding of history has been skewed.
  Some of the current putdown of traditional historical interpretation 
is legitimate rejection and reaction to this past limited and distorted 
understanding and interpretation of our history. The search now, it 
seems to me, should be for more balanced interpretation, which includes 
striving to put many forces and multiple players into proper balance 
and perspective. That, I think, is what is at issue with regard to the 
question that did Lincoln free the slaves.
  Mr. Speaker, but for Abraham Lincoln and the answers for which he so 
nobly fought and advanced, we today would be without the capacity of 
building a more perfect Union for all Americans. The naming of 
Emancipation Hall is an extraordinary event on behalf of all Americans. 
We begin the process now of broadening the education of all Americans 
to make the Union more perfect for all.
  I would close, Mr. Speaker, by just saying this: I shall never forget 
the movie ``Roots.'' There was a great scene in the movie ``Roots'' 
when Kunta Kinte was being told by a slave master that his name was 
Toby. And he kept saying no, my name is Kunta Kinte. And he said, no, 
your name is Toby. He said Kunta Kinte. Toby.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Kinte made an extraordinary contribution to saving 
this Union, to preserving it, and his descendants are making a 
contribution and making it more perfect. Congratulations to all Members 
of Congress today who voted to name the great hall Emancipation.

                          ____________________