[piano intro] - [Narrator] This program was made possible by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
- The North Carolina Award is the highest civilian honor.
I'm proud to present it to nine extraordinary people tonight.
This year, we're honoring not only the six incredible 2021 award winners, but also three groundbreaking scientists who will receive the 2020 Award for Science for their recognition in helping the world battle COVID-19.
Over the years, we've honored artists, poets, writers, musicians, journalists, scientists, and public service, with this award to recognize their work and their contributions to our state.
And tonight we add nine more remarkable North Carolinians to that list.
Our first award winner has spent the last three decades as a world leader in the study of coronaviruses, and his dedication to that endeavor provided vital efforts in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
His lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received one of the first samples of the novel coronavirus allowing his team to study how the virus replicated and spread.
The goal was to get help and to get drugs such as Remdesivir into clinical trials and approved for patient treatment.
His research team pioneered treatments for COVID-19 helped to develop life-saving therapeutic antibody treatments, and tested the efficacy and safety of vaccines to prevent the disease.
We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his tireless work to combat this devastating virus, and a number of people owe him their lives.
And now in his own words, Dr. Ralph Baric.
[upbeat orchestral music] - I heard rumors about a new virus at the end of December, early January of 2020.
By the eighth or 10th or so of January, I'd heard it was a coronavirus.
[upbeat orchestral music] And rapidly my lab was recruited to get involved in developing and testing therapeutics and vaccines, and small molecule inhibitors against this new virus.
That spring was a nonstop work effort by a huge number of people in the lab who worked 18 hours a day nonstop seven days a week who made a huge difference in human health.
And so the science was very rewarding, but it was also simultaneously tragic to watch a transition into a pandemic respiratory virus and sweep through our country.
That's a horrible event to see.
The entire lab has been under a lot of pressure to help develop products so that they could move into the clinic and make a difference in people's lives.
That's very rewarding to be part of that effort and and actually leading the effort as part of my group, tremendous individuals who made a tremendous difference in the world and is proud to be associated with me.
The rollout of vaccines within a year is an incredible achievement of the scientific community that took advantage of decades of research that most people in the public, you know wasn't aware that was occurring.
So all of that information was compiled, and then streamlined as a singular effort that involved many labs across the country to get that done for the American people, and that's followed by the great generosity of the American people, putting money into basic science, and actually believing in science, and its a ability to improve our lives.
The Triangle area is very special for biotechnology, and science that can translate into products for human health, great research institutions that surround the Research Triangle Park, you have NC State with their focus on ag-biotech, you have Duke University, highly ranked medical center with a premier research institution across the globe, and you have UNC also a premier basic and applied research institution with focus on biomedical sciences, but also public health.
UNC was ranked seventh globally in coronavirus research prior to the pandemic.
So that mix of basic science surrounding an incredibly prolific and capable biotechnology hub makes the triangle area very very unique and special.
It's a great place to be.
And I love the target state.
[upbeat orchestral music] [audience applause] - Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to this stage the recipient of the 2020 North Carolina Award for Science Dr. Ralph Baric.
[audience applause] - I normally don't like to ever see myself talk, or give a recording, but actually the people that did that were actually quite good.
I can't remember saying any of it, I have to admit.
[audience laughing] But let me start off by thanking the Governor and the Awards Committee for this award.
It's not only a tremendous honor for my family, but also for two great institutions here in North Carolina.
I did my undergraduate work at North Carolina State University and my doctorate work, and then transitioned over to UNC as a faculty member.
So football games are very, very difficult for me.
[audience laughing] I also swam for NC State.
So I had been indoctrinated into the Wolf Pack, our heels, you know, but over the years, I've come to love them both.
So it's a pleasure to be here.
In addition to, you know, thanking my family for all the support they've provided me over the years, and unfortunately my wife can't be here, she is sick, but not with COVID but we didn't want her sitting the table coughing and terrifying the rest of the audience.
[audience laughing] I've been quite fortunate to raise four kids, four children in the state who've been very successful, and it's been a joy of my life to live here.
I also say one of the most important things for faculty at a university is to interact with young scientists, and help them to achieve their goals, and so it's an incredible honor for me personally to be here with Kizzy Corbett, I was on her doctorate committee.
She was really hard on me.
She kept asking hard questions.
Yeah, she needs to be nicer to me next time.
[audience laughing] But no, it was a pleasure to be working with her, and to see her blossom, and to make such an incredible contribution to human health, and to receive award with her at that is very, very special for me.
So thank you, Kizzy.
Finally, I need to talk a couple of minutes about my laboratory.
I happen to be fortunate to have worked with extraordinary group of people from North Carolina, from around the country that have come to North Carolina, and started to raise families here.
And they worked incredibly hard throughout this entire pandemic.
Again, the 18 hours a day is not an exaggeration, seven days a week is not exaggeration, and to think that a small laboratory was able to help bring several products through FDA approval to make a difference in people's lives is an incredibly rewarding experience for a basic scientist, who never expected to have anything like this happen.
And I'm sure most of you have never heard of coronaviruses probably before perhaps 2002, perhaps 2018, but a completely unprecedented experience for a scientist, it's been an honor to try to make a difference.
so again, I thank you all for coming, and for this award and I will treasure it always.
[audience applause] [emotional music] - Our next award winner has been the Director of the National Institutes of Health for the past 12 years, serving three different presidents.
He's the only presidentially appointed NIH Director to serve under multiple administrations, Before his tenure as NIH Director he led the International Human Genome project, which culminated in 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book.
What a map.
That breakthrough was hailed as a significant step toward helping doctors diagnose, treat, and even prevent thousands of illnesses caused by genetic disorders.
Working with two presidential administrations to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, he helped to launch several important initiatives to combat the virus, including a public private partnership to develop coordinated research strategy for prioritizing the development of promising treatments and vaccines, his work to unlock our genetic code, and his commitment to using that knowledge to treat illness has saved and improved countless lives.
And now in his own words, Dr. Francis S. Collins.
[audience applause] - My excitement about genetics started at the University of North Carolina in a two-week-series of just six lectures given by professor Neil Kirkman.
I was hooked.
He brought patients to class.
Patient with sickle cell disease, a child with Down syndrome, a person with neurofibromatosis, and he explained how simple changes in DNA could result in these outcomes, and I felt this must be what my calling is, because it fits so well with my desire to be studying things that were about information, digital information, that's DNA.
After the success in finding the cystic fibrosis gene, which I did with my colleagues at the hospital for sick children, it was clear to me, if we wanted to see this succeed for the thousands of other genetic diseases that were still waiting to be figured out, we had to have the genome better laid out.
We had to really understand this instruction book, and even to have a copy of it that we could read, and that was the motivation for the human genome project, which at that very time was beginning to gather steam.
And by 2003, it was done, that reference sequence of those there billion letters was available to everybody, and all those searches for the causes of genetic diseases were getting massively accelerated.
Another thing I've been able to do is to bring industry and academia and the government in a partnership called ACTIV, accelerating COVID-19 therapeutic interventions and vaccines A-C-T-I-V all gathered together around the same table to say "What are the things we can do together?"
And that has made it possible to do things in terms of vaccines and treatments that simply have never been done before like this.
That's one of the joys I've had as an NIH Director is to be a convener of collaborations.
And that really can make things happen at a pace and with the kind of excellence and scientific rigor that needs to be brought to bear when you have a challenge like COVID-19.
I'd like to give a big shout out to the state of North Carolina and particularly to the University of North Carolina for the incredible gift I received of spending eight years there, I left as a fully trained doctor of internal medicine with a passion for genetics, ready to go on and take the world, and see what I could do to try to make it a better place.
I will always carry in my heart a deep affection for the people of North Carolina, and a gratitude for the way in which they gave so much to me and my family to get us started into a direction that has turned out to be pretty amazing.
[emotional piano music ending] - Dr. Collins was a unable to join us for the ceremony tonight, but let's just give him another round of applause.
[audience applause] Our next award recipient began work on a vaccine for COVID-19, almost from the beginning of the pandemic.
As a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health, she led a team that partnered with biotechnology company Moderna, building on her work, years of vaccine, coronavirus research, it took a near 66 days for her team to produce a vaccine ready for phase one clinical trials.
It's for sure a medical miracle but one that was built on hard work and science.
Using her national prominence as a vaccine researcher, she has made it her mission to address lingering vaccine hesitancy, particularly in communities of color, speaking virtually to churches, community organizations, and televised national town halls.
She strives to truly listen to those who are skeptical of the vaccine, and reassure them of its safety and effectiveness.
And now in her own words, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett.
[emotional piano music] - I grew up in a family of seven, Hillsborough is certainly a part still of each of our lives in so many ways.
I mean, our grandparents live there, my parents live there.
Hillsborough certainly sits as a backdrop to the way that I think about my science, and when I was 16 years old, I did an internship at the University of North Carolina, and I just fell in love with the scientific process.
I felt like I was a scientist after that summer, and I just could not stop trying to be a scientist.
We were able to get a vaccine into a phase one clinical trial in 66 days because of the large amount of research that was done prior to my team even working on coronaviruses and there's research on messenger RNA, and it's use to deliver therapeutic proteins that has been going on for, you know, upwards of of 10 to 15 years.
There were MERS and SARS with your other coronaviruses that other viral immunologists and vaccinoologists had worked on previously.
And then with us, we were really interested in understanding the fundamental basic biology of surface proteins on coronaviruses, and we did that in a collaborative network of our group at the National Institutes of Health groups even at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Ralph Baric's group, and in that collaborative effort, we'd really laid a foundation for the vaccine development that led way into this rapid SARS-COV2 vaccine development.
I am very heavily, still involved in the COVID-19 vaccine response, now there is vaccine, but there are continuing understanding of how the vaccine protects against variants.
The question of whether to boost or not, so many fundamental viral immunology questions to assess from this vaccine response that could help us with future vaccine responses, whether it be for coronaviruses or other viruses that are similar, also really answering some really fundamental viral immunology questions, going back to that foundational work that happened prior to the pandemic to further decipher those questions, to further assess what the viral immunology across the coronavirus viral family looks like, so that we can help to further vaccine development further with more novel vaccines.
So mRNA is one thing, but there's so many different platforms that have the potential to revolutionize modern medicine, and we're going to explore those.
[emotional piano music ending] [audience applause] - Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the recipient of the 2020 North Carolina Award for Science, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett.
[audience applause] [upbeat music] [audience cheers applause] - Well it's good to be home, and I'm very happy to be just about anywhere after the two years that we have had thus far, oh man, they should tell you not to wear weaves when you're getting metals.
[laughing in unison] Anyways, no, thank you, Governor Cooper, for, first of all for your leadership of the state that holds such a moment, [audience applause] such a deep place in my heart, and thank you for this award, I am so excited to be here with all of you, you know, North Carolina as was said in that video, I was born at UNC Hospitals, I was raised between Hurdle Mills and Hillsborough, and for my PhD, I actually came back to my roots, and got my PhD at UNC, and that's when Ralph was actually on my a dissertation committee.
And despite what he says, he actually gave me a harder time than I gave him.
[laughing] But it all worked out because actually the interactions with Ralph and my curiosity, and the hard time that I gave him around coronavirus was really because I thought that they were cool.
They are huge viruses, and nobody was really working on them except for him, and so I figured that maybe I could help him out a little bit [laughing], but you know, this entire vaccine project, not only does the work of this rapid vaccine development lay on the shoulders of so many who have pioneered efforts in mRNA vaccine technologies, viral immunology, and all other things for decades, but it comes, because of a team, and I'm getting a lot of awards, and I just like to remind people that actually I wasn't really in the lab over the last two years, because we'd build out a network that was so strong, and we had a team of very capable students and postdocs at the National Institutes of Health that did the work, and one of the most important parts of that is that Ralph actually volunteered his lab to collaborate with my laboratory and Dr. Graham's laboratory at the NIH very early on in our coronavirus research, even prior to the pandemic, like five years before the pandemic, and the work that we did allowed us to be so confident that we would be able to do this vaccine and do it well, that we just went for it.
And I don't know why Ralph would ever [laughing] do that much work because they did a lot for the, not just the vaccine efforts, but across the board for the pandemic response.
But I'm so grateful for that, I'm so grateful for the inspiration in my PhD, I'm grateful to this state for providing me this place that calls home, giving me this crisp non-city air to breathe every single time I come home, and then also to my family, for the support that is almost godly in a way without judgment, unwavering in faith, the prayers come and I don't even know about them, but I know that they're happening, because there is no way that I get awards like this, if my family and my grandmothers particularly aren't on their knees at night, praying for me.
And so I'm thankful for that.
And although my dad likes Duke, and my grandmother retired as like an infectious disease nurse from Duke, which is like whatever [laughing in unison] and my sister likes Duke, and like, you know, I just want you guys to still love them and applaud them for being my support system, and thank you for being here.
[audience cheers and applause] - Our next award winner is an author, historian, and teacher who's tackled the issue of race, both in his award-winning books, and in the classrooms where he teaches.
As a young man, he witnessed the horrifying, sometimes violent effects of racism in North Carolina and across the South.
As an author, he has plumbed those experiences to create powerful works that provide an unflinching look at the past and aspire us to be better, to do better, to heal divisions, and to accept one another.
He's perhaps best-known as the author of the Blood of Emmett Till, and Blood Done Sign My Name.
Two magnificent award-winning works that ask us to face, head on, racism and prejudice in our own communities.
And now in his own words, Dr. Timothy Tyson.
[emotional piano music] - I loved books from the very first.
My mother has told me that she came in when I was two, and I had a book and I had put it over my face, I was lying down with the book over my face and crying.
And when she said, "What's the matter Tim?"
I said "I can't get in the book."
I was an editorial editor from a high school newspaper, and I wrote an editorial that the principal didn't like, and he went and removed them all from all the machines that held the paper, so that people couldn't get it and threw them all away.
You know, that's how we teach democracy.
So I expected conflict with the authorities, really.
[emotional piano music] I've never really wanted to just write for a few hundred academics, academic history's important, and you know, I've played by those rules, but nonetheless I'm writing for a larger audience, 'cause the history that really matters, and I think history really matters is the history that the public is carrying around in their head.
How can you be a citizen if you don't know from which you have come?
You know the African American saga in the South is just the most important story in American history, but it's also the most compelling story.
Some of it is hard, and tragic, and brutal, and created really the most powerful expressive culture in the history of the world.
The nameless numberless authors of the spirituals, which are deep and complex and revolutionary, that's my favorite American story, and I think if you look around, that's the story that we need to know.
That's a story of possibility, as well as tragedy.
My work is a love letter to North Carolina, forces of of love and respect for humanity and equality and justice can win here.
It is possible.
And that makes it an exciting place, you know, where what we do matters, so that's my own attachment to North Carolina in a personal way is a very powerful thing.
But it's also that sense of possibility that I find here in this place I love so much.
[audience applause] - Ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage, the recipient of the 2021 North Carolina Award for Literature, Dr. Timothy Tyson.
[audience applause] [upbeat music] - Well, since I got here telling stories about history, a quick word of advice from a historian.
History's illegal most places.
When ignorant demagogues, whether cynical or stupid try to tell, to stop the teaching of history do not fret.
Joseph Stalin, bloodthirsty dictator of the Soviet Union once wrote, "You have to watch the historians.
"They can ruin everything."
[audience laughing] Oh yes, we will.
Oh yes, we will.
[audience cheers and applause] You know, history's a little bit like the viruses our distinguished colleagues have been doing battle with, with such success, in that eventually you run into the facts.
Ideology will only carry you so far.
So you just run slam into the facts, and they remain.
Wanna owe the first and highest thanks to my mother, Martha Bowie-Tyson, who spent several decades strengthening North Carolina's public schools at a difficult hour, even so, she's never been arrested, she nurtured in me a deep love of reading, and loved me like no other, which I did literally help with for quite a while.
When Mama had had enough of her children, and maybe enough of yours too, my Daddy would take us down to a rocky outcropping in the middle of the river, and build a fire and cook us bacon and eggs, and tell us the stories that told us who we were.
The songs that told us who we were, and whose we were.
First you tell the stories, then they tell you.
Oh Vernon read every draft of everything I ever wrote or published.
I don't think a page without a mark of his on it has ever come out with my name on it.
He went to archives and interviews with me all over the South, even South Carolina, [audience laughing] which by the way, anybody's from South Carolina, just ask the word next time you fire on federal troops, you're on your own baby.
[audience laughing] Anyway, we have to behave, 'cause Vernon is somewhere close by, watching, not far.
My sisters, Boo and Julie, know this to be true, and they have stood by me resolutely all these years.
My children, Hope and Sam have given me ineffable joy and laughter, pride, and love.
And I also wish to thank God, and not just for them, but for Isabel Esperanza Cintron Tyson, now two and a half, whose new baby sister, Ruby Hart Cintron Tyson, arrived at my house in the last 30 minutes or so.
[audience laughs] So if you see me disappear, I have an important introduction to make.
All of them, plenty of reasons to stay here and fight.
My whole heart goes out to the Morgans of Corapeake North Carolina.
Perry and I met at Methodist youth fellowship when we were 14.
She told me not to tell you I kissed her on the mouth the first day, so that's not really true I did.
[audience laughs] We were very good friends though, for 12 years after that.
12 years of begging until finally she came around.
I didn't say that either.
We've been dear friends for a long time, and she's still my best friend.
And I couldn't have done any of this work without her.
She is my bright and morning star.
I'm also grateful to all the Morgan clan up there in Gates County on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp.
I love it, that that's his actual name, which would be Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, Mike Ward, who was the superintendent of public instruction, North Carolina, for a number of years.
And particularly their offspring, one of whom, Jason Morgan Ward, I ruined for honest labor.
[audience laughs] He's a historian at Yammer University.
[audience laughs] I've had some teachers that shaped me, tolerated me.
Joy Effret, J.F.
Webb High School.
She was my teacher when I was about seven though.
She would leave me and Ed, her son, my dear friend in a room and say, "I'm gonna be back in 45 minutes.
"And I want y'all to write me a poem."
Which is in other words, which is a great babysitter.
But the purpose of literature became clear to me.
It was to please Joy Effret.
Dan Carter at Emory.
William Chafe at Duke University.
Fred Chapel at UNC Greensboro.
Jim Clark Filter there too.
Dr. John Hope Franklin at Duke, and Larry Goodwin.
Larry Goodwin was all Texas populist.
He was a lot of things.
He was a political operative before he was a historian.
He said, "You know the trouble with you Tyson, "You wanna lead the revolution "and then you want a nice thank you note from the king."
[audience laughs] Well, well, well, anyway.
Actually right after he said, "Damn, he might get it.
"I don't know."
[audience laughs] I wanna thank Steven Louise Coggins for taking me in and helping me write and holding me up.
[audience clapping] Ken Lewis and Holly Eul Lewis and daughter, Evan, for constant friendship and also for a very important intellectual help with my book, "The Blood of Emmett Till."
Reverend William J. Barber, the second visionary leader and dear friend, who's given me just about the most engaging unpaid job that you could possibly [laughs] imagine these past 15 years.
Yvonne Brandon, Reverend Dr. T. Anthony Spearman.
Al McShirley, many others.
In my work, though, itself I think I owe my deepest debt to writer and historian, David S. Cecelski, who's the best historian of North Carolina who ever lived.
[audience claps] And my friend and collaborator now 30 years, I'm grateful to my colleagues at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
Wesley Hogan and also professor Mary D. Williams, my colleague, who- [audience claps] The great gospel singer.
And we teach a course called "the South in black and white, "history politics and culture along the color line "in the 20th century South."
And she's a great scholar and performer of African American and Southern music, and has saved my life.
And in conversation, I took her to Iowa for no money.
[audience laughs] In the winter.
I also wanna say a word of thanks to North Carolina's own genius.
If we have raised a genius, his name is Mike Wiley.
He is a playwright [audience clapping] and actor and storyteller.
And also a screenwriter.
Jeb Stewart, who was a screenwriter and director from Gastonia, North Carolina, both of whom taught me new ways to tell stories.
I'm honored and I'm really downright flabbergasted to be among those, the honorees tonight.
I look down the list and I seem to be the only one who hadn't definitely demonstrably helped anybody.
[audience laughs] And Mercy.
Historians, you get friends that you only know from the archive.
You're going through their papers and stuff.
They begin to have personalities to you.
I have admired Dudley Flood, Dr.
Flood for a long time.
And so to be here in his company is an honor.
Now, one thing I want to... One more historical observation is that we need to stop thinking about every historical fact as an indictment of someone or other.
Read through the archives.
Even the people I love in the archive, 50 years later, they don't look so perfect.
They're doing the best they can.
They know their circumstances and the things they're up against.
They're flawed people and it's a flawed world.
But none of us has a monopoly on truth.
And also that's not the point.
We need to get away from shame and blame and finger pointing and try to learn what actually happened.
It's not about making people feel guilty of something.
And it's certainly, I'm just a recovering white supremacist like everybody else, okay.
So don't.
There's this conversation that goes on.
Conservatives tend, these are white folks now, conservatives tend to say, "Well, I didn't own slaves.
"We weren't even here then.
"That was a long time ago.
"And it's not my fault."
Subtext is, "And I'm not doing anything about it."
White liberals tend to sort of say, "My people were always on the side of the angels.
"My parents told us never to say things like that."
And also," I just feel terrible."
It's like, don't feel terrible.
Do something.
We can't wait till the saints come marching in.
[audience laughs] Just do something would be good.
But that's not a historical question, right?
That's a citizenship question.
We illuminate our efforts at citizenship through history.
It's not a battle in that way.
But beyond that, even if it were, I believe that when the children are in the canoe and the canoe is drifting toward the falls, it is pointless to argue about who left the rope untied rather than how to get them out of this terrible danger.
Now, children who are marginalized by prejudice and poverty are at special risk.
But the undeniable truth is we are all in that canoe.
Our lives, our children and grandchildren, the values we hold dear, our children's children and children's grandchildren, are all in that canoe.
We've got to think deeper than whose fault it is.
We can outlaw factual exploration of history.
We can hide the empty cake plate and expect to lose weight.
We can embrace our innocence and promote our ignorance, but history proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that innocence nor ignorance will exempt you from the consequences of history.
History doesn't care if it's not your fault.
The consequences come and a debt is paid and the innocents suffer along with the guilty.
If I could judge 'em one from the other, which I can't.
And if we don't alter that, the arc of the history that we're caught in, then we can stand here talking about whose fault it is all day long, but the price will be heavy.
And we need to stop playing these games of blame and shame, and instead focus on what kind of world we hope to have for our descendants, for our children and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and what kind of world we want them to grow up in.
I think a vibrant, multiracial democracy, which has never by the way, existed in the history of the world.
And that's a little challenge, I think.
I think that'd be nice, but mainly I think we need to... And so I think we need to talk about, we let historical knowledge illuminate our thoughts about how do we get from here to there.
Ella Baker, who's the most unheralded North Carolinian ever, because she, during three years as the national NAACP's director of branches, 1943 and 1946, she increased the membership of the NAACP across the South by 900%.
Now I'm not a medical scientist, but that's a lot of percent.
Then against the urgings of Martin Luther King, who thought maybe we needed a cooling off period, she founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organized it.
That is the organization that lifted Dr. King to world historical stature and then passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
She organized that.
She got impatient with them too, though.
And when the students in Greensboro and Raleigh and Charlotte started sitting in at the lunch counters in 1960, she called a conference at Shaw, her Alma mater, and the student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was born.
Those are the three most important civil rights organizations in our history.
And none of them would really exist in its meaningful way without Ella Baker of Littleton.
I say all that to tell you of this.
She said, "Everything you need is all around you.
"The people that you know, the traditions you hold dear, "the things you learned at your mother's knee, "everything you need to fix this is right here with you."
Thank you.
[audience claps] [soft music] - In the years following the landmark Brown versus Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation in schools, our next award winner traveled to every part of North Carolina in an effort to unite divided communities and work toward integrating North Carolina's public school system.
In his hometown in Hertford County, educational opportunities in the segregated school system, very greatly doing schools for black children and those for white children.
It was not until he transitioned from working as a teacher and a principal to a career at the state department of public instruction that he truly had the opportunity to affect change on the system that he grew up in.
His dedication to desegregating schools across the state has helped to ensure a more equitable educational experience for all North Carolina school children.
And now in his own words, Dr. Dudley E. Flood.
[audience clapping] [bright music] - First of all, I came from a family of teaching.
I'm the eighth child of my parents.
Five of whom were teachers.
And while my mother was not an authorized teacher, she finished school at a point where she could have taught, but nine kids, one being me, she had a full time job at home teaching us.
And not only that, but having watched my other siblings who were in teaching, I saw the glory of teaching.
I taught in what was an all black and all Indian school.
And actually the Indian people they had not been so classified at the time.
You only had two people in North Carolina, that was white and colored.
So the Indian people, one of whom was my father, was colored, simply.
My father's father was a white man.
His mother was an Indian woman.
My mother's a black woman, so I didn't have anybody left to hate.
But then when I became principal, I was hired specifically for the purpose of desegregating school.
That's the highlight of my life.
That's the greatest experience I've ever had, without question.
I've been in every county in this state, most cities and many small old towns.
And then I had one thing that worked for me 100% of the time.
I stumbled on it by accident.
I was going down to Hart County, of all places, to meet with a rather heterogeneous gathering.
Ku Klux Klansmen, some white rights for white people, some Black Panthers, some SCL people and all the rest.
And I stopped in Greenville, had a little pop shop and I saw this ball.
And one side of it was green and one side was red.
And so I clipped that ball and I took it to the meeting.
And I said, before we begin this meeting, I want to ask you one question.
I held the ball up.
I said, "What color is this ball?"
They said, "Red."
I said, "No, it's green."
They said "Red."
I said, "No, it's green."
I got adamant as they got.
"I'm looking right at it, it's red."
I turned the ball around and, "Oh, on your side it's green?"
"Oh yes."
Now we can shout and crash each other if we want to, but it still gonna look green to me, it's still gonna look red to you.
What if you were to come around to my side and see how it looks to me, and what if I were to come around to your side and see how it looks to you?
Wouldn't we both be more informed.
[soft music] I felt I was making a contribution every single day.
I felt that.
But I've been retired 20 years, and who would remember.
So for somebody to remember now that I might deserve this, it really chokes you up.
I mean, it really, really chokes you.
And I can't tell you how flattered and how honored I feel.
[soft music end] - Please welcome to the stage, the recipient of the 2021 North Carolina Award for Public Service, Dr. Dudley E. Flood.
[audience cheering] [victorious music plays] - I would like first to thank each of you for your being here and for your allowing me to be here.
And I make you the same promise that Elizabeth Taylor made to each of her eight husbands, I will not keep you long.
[audience laughs] I wanna thank a few people who are here, and few who are not.
I would begin by thanking my late wife, Barbara Thomas Flood, because it was she who insisted that I do the right thing.
I didn't always necessarily want to do the right thing, but it was she who insisted.
And for you who are recently married, we were married for 55 years and seven months prior to her passing.
And it was a very successful marriage and only had one rule in our marriage.
And that was, I didn't try to run her life and I didn't try to run my life.
[audience laughs] - Now, I have taught that to my nephew who is here with me.
And he is in that same category.
He is very successful married.
I wanna thank the late A. Craig Phillips.
It was he who put together the team of which I was privileged to work.
He dug out Gene Cosby from Morganton, and me from, originally from Winton.
And that couldn't have been more different set of backgrounds.
As an matter of fact, I shared with Gene, that I only had one prejudice in my life.
We're not allowed to be prejudice in my household, but the one prejudice that I had was I was cautious of those mountain people.
See, I had read Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, and I had read Li'l Abner and all that.
And so here I am working with Gene Cosby and we are traveling the state.
And we went the other part of the state that you know nothing about, out in Swain County, and it was getting dark.
And I said, "Gene, we need to head on back to Raleigh."
Well, back in those days, it was five and a half hours from Raleigh to Asheville.
'Cause you had no 40.
And you just went through the woods and found your way.
[audience laughs] And Gene said to me, "Dudley, we don't need "to ride back tonight."
I said, "Well, you know it's vacation season, "can't find a hotel."
He said, "Wouldn't we stay with my people?"
I said, "Your people, Gene?
"Your people are down in Goldsboro."
He said, "Oh no, didn't you know?
"We are from pumpkin center right up here in Burke County."
And I said to myself, "Self, here's a hillbilly "sitting right on your front seat, [audience laughs] "in your car."
I learned from that experience, one thing.
You can be indoctrinated by your circumstance, by your experiences.
And you can develop a narrative around those, if you wish.
Or you can experience life in a way that you examine real people.
How they are, who they are?
And not categorize any of them by your predisposition.
And at some point, you'll come to the realization that you have to make a decision.
Are you're gonna live with all that stuff you heard, or you're gonna live with what you know, because you shall have experienced it?
And if you allow yourself, you are going to find some beautiful people in every single demographic.
[audience clapping] So, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that Gene Cosby and I spent more time together than we did with our respective families.
And part of the success we enjoyed was that we modeled what we spoke about.
You would not be able to be around us and not know that here are two guys that's different as chalk and cheese who love each other with a passion.
And if that is possible for them, how many do you have to see until you know it can be done?
And so we didn't have to preach, we modeled.
Oh yes, we had a few meetings [chuckles] and we had some discussions, governor, but I don't ever recall having raised my voice.
I don't ever recall Gene having raised his voice.
And I don't recall having gone anywhere that we didn't find somebody that changed his or her disposition when we left.
So I'm so thankful for North Carolina having given us that opportunity.
I don't think I would've had it anywhere else in the country at that time.
And I've been privileged to have traveled in all except Montana and South Dakota, every other state in the union and in every province in Canada, and in most of Germany, and in Bermuda.
And I have been nowhere that I want to live, except right here in North Carolina.
[chuckles] I'm not going anywhere.
Thank you so much.
I gotta appreciate you.
[audience claps] Thank you.
[audience claps] - So if you're a fan of traditional North Carolina music and storytelling, then you're probably also a fan of our next award recipient.
His interest in music began during his childhood in Texas, where he learned to play the rhythm bones that had been passed down in his family for generations.
His of music brought him to Western North Carolina, where he founded and directed the Appalachian Music Program at Warren Wilson College.
In 1981, he began a full-time career in entertainment, bringing the sounds and stories of Appalachia to audiences across the globe, through his concerts and recording along with hosting several acclaimed television series.
Throughout his career, he has truly been an ambassador for the traditional music in North Carolina.
And now in his own words, David Holt.
- One of the reasons I got interested in traditional music, I think, was when I was a little kid in Texas, all the men in my family played the bones, just a old timey rhythm instrument.
Can I play a little?
- [Interviewer] Please do.
- Let you hear it.
[traditional music] So everybody played and on Christmas and stuff, we'd be like ♪ Jingle bell ♪ [chuckles] Crazy, but it opened my ears to something unusual in music.
And that kind of, I think, as a boy that started me off listening to other kinds of stuff.
[country music] At Warren Wilson College, wanted somebody to teach Appalachian music and teach the instruments.
And I played a bunch of instruments.
And so they asked me to do that.
And I fell in love with the teaching aspect and getting old timers off out of the mountains to come down to teach at the college.
I said, I would play for every organization in Asheville once free.
I didn't realize there were so many organizations.
[chuckles] But I had got a lot of experimental time in front of people and really realized I loved performing.
That was really a fun thing, to try to put this older music to people who'd kind of forgotten about into the forefront and make it entertaining.
That was my goal.
I began to realize that playing in schools was an important part of what I do because now if you ask the guys in the Steep Canyon Rangers or Balsam Range, most of 'em heard me when they were in elementary school and got fired up about that.
'Cause I felt like it was something I was learning and taking a lot from the musicians, but I was trying to give it back through the schools.
Coordination was always a fun thing for me in my whole life.
And about two and a half years ago, I got diagnosed with Parkinson's.
[chuckles] And the funny thing about Parkinson's, is not funny, but it's kind of so bizarre, it is funny, you lose your sense of timing and you lose your muscle memory.
And so it just... And your fingers feel like you're playing with glue in between each knuckle.
So I had to quit performing.
I just decided to do that.
I'd really given it 55 years.
I had a great career.
I just had to call it quits.
It was painful as heck.
It's like losing an arm or a leg or all your arms and legs.
And then, so I've been back to do these paintings and also doing sculpture.
It's the people that make North Carolina awesome and great.
I've met so many wonderful, wonderful people.
I mean, there's so much folklore in North Carolina still, that everybody should get out and dig out what they can while it's still here.
I never claimed to be a North Carolinian, even though my family came from here, but I never tried to be an old mountain person or make a character.
I wanted to just...
It's real music, it's beautiful music, and I just wanted that to come across.
I didn't want to get in the way of that.
So this North Carolina Award is huge for me, especially coming at the end of my career and having Parkinson's and all that.
That's just a perfect timing for me.
Anybody wanna play pickleball?
[people laughing] Anybody out there who wanna play pickleball, just gimme a call.
[country music ends] [audience clapping] - Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the recipient of the 2021 North Carolina Award for Fine Arts, David Holt.
[soft music] [audience cheering] [soft music continues] [audience cheering] - Well, I want to thank the governor and everyone on the committee.
I'm just so honored to be chosen.
And I wanna thank my wife, most of all, who keeps it together and got it together and keeps it going.
Gentlemen, just do what your wife says.
She knows better than anybody else.
[audience laughs] I don't hear an amen on that.
[audience cheers] So in 1858, my great, great grandfather took these bones that he, he was from Alamance County, North Carolina, and he had whittled these wooden bones to play and took 'em with him to Texas.
And that's how my family got to Texas.
As the governor said, we have seven generations of Texas bones players.
So, as I mentioned in the film, at Christmas they would sit around and play.
At some point, my grandfather and father would get out the bones, tell the story about John Oscar Holt moving from North Carolina and how they got to Texas.
And my dad said they were gonna play, the bony parts were tricky.
He said, "We can't play the melody.
"We can only play the bony part."
[audience awes] And like I said, it made me realize as a child, that there were other types of music that were really exciting and rhythmic, that was not on the radio.
So in 1969, I fell in love with the sound of the banjo and moved back to North Carolina, or came to North Carolina the first time to find some old banjo players.
And I found hundreds of great musicians and decided that I just love the place, I love the music, I love the people, and I was gonna live here.
And so I'm wanna play these bones a little bit to salute my great-grandfather and these bones because it's in a way, some small way, they're the ones that got me standing right here, right now.
[cheerful harmonica music] ♪ [audience applause] - Thank you, thank you.
- Our next award recipient has a true passion for community service.
She says her career in both state and local government and her service with numerous nonprofits has never been simply a job, has been a calling.
As assistant secretary at the former Department of Natural Resources and Community Development, she led the successful development of the North Carolina Zoo and oversaw the creation of the state park system.
Shifting her focus to local government, she led the consolidation of Wake County's numerous human services agencies ensuring that county residents could find the help that they needed all in one location.
In 2000, she co-founded a nonprofit recovery and rehabilitation center in Raleigh to serve those struggling with alcohol and drug dependency.
Today, she remains active in her community as a volunteer, organizer, and board member of a number of organizations, including the AJ Fletcher Foundation, South Light Healthcare, Southeast Raleigh Promise and her church.
And now in her own words, Maria Foxx Spaulding.
[audience cheer and applause] - I grew up in a little town called Bon Lee, North Carolina.
It's in Chatham County in a crossroad community, very rural.
I had young parents who thought I was the best thing since sliced bread.
And they did miraculous things for me.
So it was a solid base of family.
And that's where I get my independence, initiative, confidence, feeling like I can do anything, because I was told I could do anything.
Family is my foundation.
I can lose everything I've got, but as long as I have my family, that's it.
I mean, they hold me up, they're always there, I am steeped in confidence and faith in God but I don't always wear it on my shoulder because I say bad words every now and then.
[laughs] I did have a lot of activity as it relates to the state parks first, and the Zoo and the state parks are so important, because it reserves the special places in North Carolina, things that exist in special places that there you can't find them anywhere else.
I didn't know a thing about a zoo, not a thing, but I did know a lot about leadership and management, and I had enough sense to listen to those professionals who knew what they were talking about, and who were eager to be the first in the country with a natural habitat zoo, and it's just a great place, even now.
I just like to show interest in people, and find out, you know what they're about.
You just never know when you're gonna meet up with someone that can change your life in some way, and you might be able to change theirs, but you just don't know.
Most people are not very approachable.
I'm very approachable.
So you just never know how people are gonna respond to your accepting them the way they are.
And I try my best to do that.
[emotional piano music] [audience cheers and applause] - Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage of the recipient of the 2020 ward North Carolina Award for Public Service, Maria Spaulding.
[audience cheers and applause] [emotional music] [audience cheers and applause] - First of all, let me tell you that I am very humbled by this award, and being a in the company of such great people of North Carolina.
This is a great state.
All we have to do is put ourselves together.
We can be anything that we wanna be, governor, huh, [speaking off microphone] [audience laughing] You brought that up.
It's your fault, it's your fault.
Governor Cooper, Secretary Wilson.
I did get that right.
To my mother, my daughter, my niece, who are my faithful faithful supporters.
If you call running up and telling you what you got to do, be careful, don't fall, hold your dress.
[audience laughing] Don't talk too long.
[audience laughing] When you see us going like this, that means stop.
[audience laughing] They're great.
They're great.
They're wonderful.
Also to my friends who are almost too numerous for me to name that are here, let your voices be heard.
[audience cheers and applause] I have to have two pastors with me so that I stay on track.
[audience laughing] My present pastor, Dr. Reverend Darlington and his wife, my former pastor, Pastor Emeritus David Forbes and his wife, Tony, they're here, and I really appreciate their being here to shore me up.
I don't know why I've had these weird jobs.
Did you happen to just hear from the zoo to the humans?
[laughing in unison] It's really been a wonderful experience for me.
I wanna thank the state of North Carolina, the county of Wake, all the national organizations who put up with this Black woman who would interrupt them and stand up and act like she owned everything.
Let me also say that I thank Jim and Barbara Goodman, for their support, the leadership that they've shown, the things that I've learned from them, my participation on AJ Fletcher Foundation, and all the different things that I've done.
I've got a smorgasbord of activities and experience.
The common ingredient has been people and their willingness to be led sometimes in a different direction than they think they wanna go.
But it's been a wonderful, wonderful career.
And as someone said before me, I just think this is a wonderful way to cap it off.
And I wanna thank you.
Thank you to the citizens of the state, to employees of the state, to all the governors that I've worked for, the secretaries, the politicians, I love to work with politicians.
Most people don't, they run from them, [audience laughing] but it's been wonderful, and I wanna thank you for being here.
Thank all and welcome all the best to all the recipients of awards, I'm happy to be in the number.
Thank you.
[audience applause] [upbeat music] - Growing up in Durham, raised by his maternal grandmother, our next recipient developed a love of fashion through the magazines he devoured at an early age.
Vogue magazine, in particular, showed him a world of high fashion, art, and literature, that must have seem worlds away from the Jim Crow South.
Style that he learned transcends race, class, and time.
Eventually this young Black man from Durham rose to prominence in the fashion world, as creative Director and then editor of Vogue, the same magazine that has inspired him in his youth.
He guided top designers to include African American models in their shows, and championed young African American designers.
Thanks to his influence, the world of high fashion has become more diverse, and welcoming for people of color.
And now in his own words, Andre Leon Talley.
- The ritual of going to church on Sunday morning was a very important thing.
And I realized that going to church was somewhat akin to going to court.
We were representing, so when you went to church, you made sure that your hat, your suit, everything was impeccable, and that's why I learned from the women.
Paper is important to me.
The printed paper is a very important, the printed page.
And if there were no books, there would be no world.
The universe of a book, the landscape of a page where you have learned something that you didn't know is an experience that you just must have in life.
You just pick up a book, and it gives you great, great sustenance.
And because I lived through the world of Vogue, I lived through the pages of Vogue, I escaped through the pages of Vogue, I read every word in Vogue.
In those beautiful images of women that were heightened by accessories, and jewelry, and exaggerated poses, it became another world.
It became almost a literary world, an epic sort of cinematic world.
And I never dreamed that I would ever get to Vogue, but I wanted to be a fashion editor early on.
And my uncle, my cousin said, "Well, men don't become fashion editors."
And my grandmother was in the kitchen, and she heard the conversation and she said, "Leave him alone, let him be what he wants to be, "he'll do whatever he wants."
And I remember that so well, I remember that so well as it it was today, sitting here today, she was talking.
My passion for fashion, it goes deep, and it runs deep, deep, deep, like rivers.
It is based on history, it is based on knowledge, it's based on a kind of stewardship.
Fashion becomes of the moment, someone designed something of the moment, and it becomes a trend, and these things are important.
You can't go forward unless you don't have some sense of grounding about fashion, who made it, why they made it, where they wore it, and who created fashion were like.
Well I don't know what I'm gonna see in the future of fashion, but I do know that I think that as long as we're not gonna go around naked in the buff, if we don't return to the garden of Eden with the leaf, the fig leafs and the serpent, there's going to be fashion.
There's always been fashion.
The state of North Carolina is a very beautiful state.
It's geographically very beautiful.
It's a very elegant state, and I am very proud to receive this award.
Thank you.
[emotional music ending] [audience applause] - Unfortunately, Mr. Talley was unable to be with us this evening, but please welcome to the stage his friend, Georgia Donaldson who will accept the 2021 North Carolina Award for Literature on his behalf.
Georgia.
[audience applause] - Thank you all.
Andre wanted me to read this to you tonight.
He is so sorry that he can't be here.
He says, "I regret that I cannot be with you tonight.
"And I thank you for being part of my journey.
"On behalf of all my great ancestors, my grandmother, "my great-grandmother China, "my mother and my father who worked so hard "to make sure that I had everything I needed "which was love and a strong foundation, and well, "unconditional love, I humbly and proudly accept the honor.
"This award also honors my great high school English teacher "who is alive today at 94, Mrs. Wanda Garrett.
"I remember well how she clicked down the halls "of Hillside High in Durham "wearing her stilettos and pencil skirt.
"It is thanks to her that I have "such a great appreciation for the written word "and for the world of fashion.
"Thank you."
[audience applause] - Our final award recipient spent much of his youth in a basement workshop tinkering with and mostly fixing broken appliances and radios brought to him by his neighbors.
That interest in electronics and mechanical engineering eventually led him to develop a device that has changed the lives of more than a million people around the world.
As a research engineer at Research Triangle Institute, he began work on the problem of restoring something resembling normal hearing to deaf people through electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve.
At the time, it was regarded as an impossible task.
That impossible task became probable with the development of a system that made it possible for deaf people to use an implant to restore hearing.
Today cochlear implants using the results of his research and development have restored nearly normal hearing for patients around the world.
And now in his own words, Dr. Blake Wilson.
- I would say that my father sparked my interest in science and engineering, and we had a basement in our house, and when dad saw my interest in electronics he said, "Son, the basement is yours to use as you wish."
Mom gave me my human perspective, and to dedicate my life if I could to improving in whatever small way the human condition.
And it just shows to me what a parent can do for a child, and how they can nurture a child in unexpected ways.
I was so supremely fortunate to be their child, supremely fortunate to go to Duke, and following my father's footsteps, and supremely fortunate to have the opportunity to work on this particular problem.
I learned a lot about how exquisite the hearing mechanism is and I became fascinated with hearing.
And then I got my first job at the Research Triangle Institute in the research triangle part.
And one of my projects there was to work on a device for deaf persons that would provide complimentary information for lip reading, not through hearing, but through vision.
And through that project, I became most interested and empathetic for the problems that people with severe losses in hearing or deafness encounter.
Reinstatement of useful hearing for deaf people was regarded as a fool's dream, utterly impossible, but in retrospect, the fools persisted and made the impossible possible.
One of the decisions early on was to donate all the NIH sponsored research on cochlear implants to the public domain.
And the concept was that any great advance then would be incorporated by all of the companies and thereby benefit the highest possible number of users of cochlear implants.
We began our program at Duke in 1984, it was one of the first such cochlear implant programs in the world, and by the late 1980s, we had discovered a way to utilize those sites, multiple sites of stimulation far better than before.
And so today more than a million people have received a cochlear implant on one side, or two cochlear implants, one for each ear.
- Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the recipient of the 2021 North Carolina Award for Science Dr. Blake Wilson.
[audience cheers and applause] [upbeat music] [audience applause] - Well, that's the first time I've seen or saw that film and it's just heartwarming to see my mom and dad there.
They did so much for me as expressed beautifully in the film.
And so many others have helped me along the way.
I received a spectacular education at Duke that enabled me to do something special later in life, and my principal teacher is here tonight, Dr. Bill Joins, he took me up as a kid and put me on his broad shoulders, and thought me much of what I know.
And he gave us all great laughs along the way, which might have been even better.
And I have wonderful colleagues and friends, some of whom are here tonight, Dr. Howard Francis, I've known for decades, and he has inspired me, Dr. Debara Tucci at Duke, who now is at the National Institutes of Health is a fast friend and it has inspired me, and we worked together on many projects.
We're working on a project now to improve hearing healthcare worldwide, and it's sponsored by the British Medical Journal, the Lancet, and it's an exciting project.
Most of all, my wonderful family is just an absolute treasure.
My wife is the love of my life, and we've worked together and had fun together for nearly 50 years now.
There's a beautiful turn of phrase by Winston Churchill which is "Success is stumbling from failure to failure "with no loss in enthusiasm."
[audience laughing] So beautifully expressive.
And it captures so well the experience and the development of the cochlear implant, as also mentioned by Governor Cooper.
It was regarded as a fool's dream at the beginning, but the fools persisted, and I am greatly honored to be among that group of fools.
[laughs] Fast forward to today, and more than a million people have received a cochlear implant, and most of them use the telephone or their cell phones every day to talk even with previously unfamiliar persons or conversations to conduct conversations with changing and unpredictable topics.
That's a long way from total deafness, and it surprised us all.
And in retrospect, it turned out that the brain of the implant users is doing most of the work.
We didn't appreciate at the beginning, nor did the critics appreciate at the beginning, that the brain could take in a very sparse and decidedly unnatural input, and make sense of it, and make progressively better sense of it over time.
So it's those working brains of the implant users that are taking this sparse input, and making sense of it over time, to the point that they're using their telephone every day.
And children, otherwise deaf children are attending mainstream schools and flourishing there, and achieving academically on a par with their hearing peers.
Well, this is a great gift to us all.
And in retrospect, the task of the designers of cochlear implants was to get just enough information over the transom, in the right format for the brain to take over and do the rest of the job.
And by the rest of the job, I mean 99% of the job.
So we did that.
[laughing in unison] [audience applause] But this award is so deeply meaningful to me.
I've lived in North Carolina for more than 60 years.
My wife was born in Greensboro, and has lived in North Carolina except for two years when she served in the Peace Corps in Liberia, in Africa, and we're North Carolinan through and through, this glorious state is a wonderful place to live, filled with equally glorious people.
[audience applause] Thank you.
- What a state we live in.
As Secretary Wilson mentioned earlier, I do have a mission for our state to make a North Carolina where people are better educated, where they're healthier, where they have more money in their pockets, and they have opportunities to live lives of purpose and abundance.
Each of our North Carolina award recipients exemplifies this mission through their work, and their service to the people of our state.
I wanna thank our committee members for their hard work in selecting both the 2020 and 2021 honorees.
I've talked to them, and they talked about all of these North Carolinians that they got to read and hear about their lives that were special for them.
Nina spoke to you earlier, Nina Szlosberg-Landis, Chair of the 2021 committee along with Fergie, Jim Ferguson, and Pat Malden, my good friend from Rocky Mail, Joey Cohen Shabitz, and Ashley Laszlo Wilson.
And then our 2020 award committee members Louise Cogan, the congress of chair, Tommy de France, Eleanor O and Cindy Patterson, and John Wilson.
Let's give all those people applause.
[audience cheers and applause] All right, what I'm gonna do now is ask all of the award winners to come back on stage, to get a picture of Secretary Wilson and me with all of you together if you can, and let's congratulate.
Come on down guys.
[audience cheers and applause] Let's congratulate for one last time with a round of applause, Dr. Ralph Baric, Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, Dr. Dudley Flood, David Hope, Maria Spaulding, Andre Leon Tyson, Dr. Timothy Tyson, Dr. Andre Leon Talley, Dr. Timothy Tyson, and Dr. Blake Wilson, our nine 2020, 2021 North Carolina Award winners.
[audience cheers and applause] - [Narrator] This program was made possible by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
[upbeat music] ♪