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One of America’s most iconic pieces of history came to life at Boston College last month when a group of undergraduates organized a day-long commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, on Nov. 19 in the Plaza at O’Neill Library.
From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., BC students and faculty read — or recited from memory — Abraham Lincoln’s historic address and offered personal reflections on its significance. Members of the student vocal group The Bostonians sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
As part of a class project, BC seniors and history majors Anthony Bellitti, Meghan Daly and Kaitlyn McGillycuddy worked with their classmates to organize the event after being inspired by their History Assistant Professor Jeremy Clarke, SJ — an Australian Jesuit priest and expert on Chinese history and culture — who encouraged them to pay tribute to their heritage.
“The irony is that it took an Australian Jesuit who teaches Chinese history to convince us as American students to celebrate our history,” said Bellitti, a native of Basking Ridge, NJ, who minors in classical studies. “This commemoration was our response to his challenge to explore the specifics of our nation’s past.”
Bellitti said there is a general lack of awareness of history among American college students that this commemoration would attempt to address. “Studying student movements in China as part of Fr. Clarke’s contemporary Chinese history class, from Sun Yat-sen to the Beijing Olympics, taught us that we needed to remind our generation of the struggles that others have experienced to get us where we are today.”
Meghan Daly, a history and computer science major from Arcadia, Calif., said that she and her fellow student organizers were particularly stirred by the Chinese students of the May 4th Movement of 1919, who stood up to defend their history and culture in the presence of foreign imperialism. “Fr. Clarke inspired us to accept this challenge on behalf of our own history and culture. It has proved to be a fun opportunity that was both interesting and compelling.”
Fr. Clarke, who uses the Twitter hashtag #historyisthebestmajor, praised his students for not only commemorating historical moments, but making history themselves. “Increasingly, I have become a believer in students being the subject and not the object of their learning. They learn best by doing. So I told them, ‘This is a history class, and you have significant things in American history to reflect upon. So get going.’”
The group arranged to film the recitations and plan to contribute them to Civil War documentarian Ken Burns’ popular project, Learn the Address.
Watch a video about the University’s tribute to the Gettysburg Address at the Boston College YouTube channel.