   At the time, I was North Carolina State University’s Vice Provost for Diversity and African American Affairs. I was living through the kind of hell that comes when doing diversity work and finding resistance to change from all sides. Foggy, eerie… that was my experience. In my memoir (Making Gumbo, p. 153) I wrote about that day. I wrote:
  September 11… 9/11… morning drive… radio news… what did they say?… some fool has hit the World Trade Center… small plane I guess… how funny… bagel and coffee filling… tasted good… office… did you hear… what… airline jet… World Trade Center on fire… TV in basement… oh no another jet hit… oh no… buildings burning… collapsing… have to teach today… walk from administrative office to teaching office … preparing to teach but… won’t be a normal class… I begin class… “No man is an Island†I recite… “a day that shall live in infamy†I say… 200 students… anyone have anything they want to say I ask… student dismay- who did this… why… student fear- what will happen next… fear and sadness- I can’t get a hold of my father in NY… student anger- let’s nuke them… student balance- nuke who… shocked… dismayed… weakened… students’ sense of a new existence- I don’t feel like the world is safe anymore… that night… me… I called Mom… I watched the images… over and over… too much… couldn’t stop… had to stop…
   9/12… morning… slow, sluggish, heavy… coffee and muffin… office… Provost needs you Rupert… wants help with speech… in three hours… all campus community event… talked with Provost… got idea… theme family… writing… conferring… editing… writing… done… walking to event… Chancellor speaks… Provost speaks… my words… spontaneous applause when the Provost said… we had argued about that line… unnecessary, he said… I said most necessary… reluctant he kept it in… loud applause when he said… we will not tolerate any person or group directing anger at anyone in our, in the Wolfpack family…We are a family… we are still the Wolfpack…
   Today, September 11, 2011, ten years past, we remember.
   I remember the hell of it all and the moments of grace.
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