That evening. On behalf of this Smithsonian National museum of africanamericanhistory and culture , welcome to a fools errand book to her. A conversation with secretary lonnie bunch and ali. Please welcome to the stage interim director of the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture , doctor spencer crew. [applause] that evening. What a wonderful crowd. Its good to see this talk filled with so many people and were glad to haveyou here. I thank you for that introduction. Its my pleasure to be here and to welcome you into our building to welcome you here on behalf of all the staff and all of you connected with the National Museum of africanAmerican History. Happy third anniversary. Its a great day for the museum, but its a great day that never would have happened without the help of all of you in this audience. Supporting us and encouraging us as we move forward. Several months ago, about 90 days ago. I was actually working as a professor at george mason university. I thought i was going to finish my career there area what happened was i got a phone call from the then director of the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture, a good friend and he told me that made my heart sink and that was that he wasnt about to be announced into the 14th terry of the smithsonian institution. [applause] and for me it couldnt have been more exciting area he asked me if i would serve as interim director of the museum as he went across tothe mall. When lonnie asks you to say do something, all you can do is say yes thats what i did. And actually is my honor to serve in this role i hope to serve as a stabilizing force to staff and for all of you as we move forward into the museum to make sure the momentum has been startedby lonnie and the terrific staff as we go forward. Its been a terrific three years since we opened. Those three years remarkable things have happened really have 6. 5 million visitors to the smithsonian. [applause] i often tell people that we have more except you people wont go home area you, you say and you say, wed love that our numbers could be higher so i dont know what to sayto you about that. The same time we had 10 million hits on our webpage over that time. We had 20, id say 21 books done by scholars, the directors of the museum and were looking forward to continuing our fundraising with our dating fundraising campaign. This will happen to ensure that the quality of the events, the quality of things we do continue to move forward and we continue to do the kind of things that make you proud of us. During this critical time in the museums existence is our priority and my priority to continue to develop the outstanding rams that have been a part of the activities of this museum. With with some help from the new secretary we expect the network to go forward and we will continue to raise the standard you expected of us all along. This evening its a part of the ongoing effort to have big programming and to engage you with the things that are important about this museum. Thank you dr. Crew. A full book tour is generously supported by toyota. Thank you to toyota. Please follow us on twitter, facebook and instagram and join the conversation using the creating nma annie an american journalist and author who is a correspondent and anchor for cbs news for almost 30 years. He is the author of the 2019 book truths worth telling in a correspondent for the cbs newsmagazine 60 minutes. Welcome scott pelley. [applause] thank you so much. Its so great to be with you here tonight. They were setting up the chairs that you are sitting in earlier today and i was thinking theres no way they are and you get that many people. Look at this crowd. Its unbelievable, fantastic. Thank you for being with us tonight. [applause] i particularly want to thank two members of the audience. Lonnie bunchs mother is with us this evening. [applause] and lonnies wife is with us this evening. [applause] and i want to pay particular notice to them because of course as we all know behind every great man there is a surprise woman. [laughter] the first time i came to this site with lonnie bunch we were wearing hard hats. The floor you are sitting on did not exist. Lonnie was Walking Around in saying this is going to be bad and this is going to be over here and this is really going to be spectacular. I didnt say this but i said to myself in my head, oh boy that is a whole lot of dreaming. But look at us now. Three years. [applause] three years the museum has been open, 6. 5 million visitors in its first three years. It is an unparalleled triumph. Thanks to the dreaming of lonnie bunch. [applause] ladies and gentlemen we have a very short found that is going to help me introduce lonnie to you. Lets have a look at this film about the 14th secretary of the smithsonian institution. Creating this museum gave us a chance to make manifest dreams of that generation. [applause] we put the lost dream back. It is a milestone moment not only for the smithsonian but for the united states. The goal of the museum is to provide opportunities for us to be made better and for us to move towards a future where race will always matter. They will find that those ideals were only met through sacrifice and strife and a belief in a better day. This places more than a building. It is a dream come true. History despite its wrenching pain cannot the undone. By knowing the story we better understand ourselves and each other. I too am american. I want to give a shot out to lonnie. Its really important to understand this project would not and could not have happened without his drive, his energy and his optimism. 11 years we have dreamed, prayed and toiled for this day. Today a dream is a dream no longer. We guarantee as long as this is america this museum will educate, engage and insure ensure a fuller story of our country will be told on the National Mall. Welcome home. C in may the smithsonian named its newest secretary, lonnie bunch the third. What i hope is i can help the smithsonian be the place of people look to not just a to visit but for answers to help them live their lives. For me its about helping the smithsonian be the place that is the glue for america and it helps america grapple with who it is and understand itself and its world. Ladies and gentlemen the author of a fools errand and my dear friend, lonnie bunch. [applause] [applause] thank you. Sit down, we have got work to do. You are cutting into Lonnie Bunchs time. Lonnie what a terrific book. Ive been telling everyone that its really not a book about building this magnificent monument, the most magnificent monument at the 21st century if you ask me but its about overcoming adversity. Its about putting a Team Together about the creativity involved in mastering all of the obstacles that came along that you didnt see coming. So i just want to ask you first about something that is one of the founding principles that you mention in the book. You mentioned a man by the name of jenkins who lived in a shack that had once been the home to enslaved persons in mr. Jenkins told you, he said words that have shaped my career. If you are and historian than your job had better be to help people remember not just what they want to remember but what they need to remember. How did that informed the work that you did here at the museum . Well jenkins was a sharecropper who was the grandson of the woman who lived on a plantation outside of Georgetown South carolina and when i went to do research and interview him he basically wasnt sure who i was, what i did that then he said its really important to make sure that you dont just give people what they think they want but you give people what they really need. For me, what the amount was how do i make sure that everybody understands that they are shaped in profound ways by the africanAmerican Experience and how do we make sure that the museum gives people things that not just commemorates and celebrates the challenges, demands that they look in all the dark corners of the American Experience. He taught me that. One of the things you told me several years ago when we did our first story about the museum for 60 minutes was in your mind this was never going to be if you will, simply a museum of slavery. I think it was really important to realize that slavery is central to understanding the American Experience, the africanAmerican Experience but thats not the totality of the black experience. For me i was trying to find the right tension between resiliency, optimism, pain and understanding. I wanted this museum to be a place that would allow you to cry when you pondered this slavery and segregation but i also wanted you to tap your toes to read the franklin or somebody else even though i have no idea who it was. The goal was really simple, to say i wanted this museum to tell a full complex picture, a picture that didnt have simple answers but it had a lot of shades of gray and a lot of ambiguity like life. You were living in chicago in this job came around and you werent sure that you want to take this job. Theres a line in the book that i just love. The charge of conceptualizing and building a National Museum, one potentially on the National Mall, was frightening enough but even more unsettling was the reality that this was a museum of no. What did you mean by that . This is a museum that started with nothing. It had one member of the staff besides myself. It had no collections. It had no idea that we would be where we are today. There was no money race. And candidly there were very few people who really believe this would happen. My notion was, am i willing to take that leap into believe that we could no matter how long it took, we could turn the know into a place that mattered. Lets talk for a moment about the incredible beauty of the building itself in the architecture of the building itself. You were given a lot of different plans to go over in order to select and a lot of them were unsolicited. People have decided that they knew what the museum should look like. This is my favorite from the book. The most original unsolicited idea was sent to our offices in 2008. As i sat at my desk my executive assistant deborah schriever miller in her role as lynchpin of the museum in later chapters struggle to bring in a large package of architectural drawings. There were more than 100 pages that detailed what this person felt was the perfect structure. As we reviewed the material i realized that this architect had developed the design of the building in the shape of a black power fist. [laughter] that design apparently did not make a short list. But tell us how we did end up with this magnificent building. I mean i think the reality is when i saw that drawing of a black power fist i realized there were many things i can get through congress and i dont think i could get that through but what happened was we realized once we got the spot on the mall but that was the big deal. And then once we have it in Joshua Holman conway might give the director and i spent a lot of time saying what should this museum be . Someone came up to me oh sure the museum look african . Should the museum look like slavery . What i knew is that one of the museum that spoke of spirituality, resiliency and uplifting. I wanted a museum that would be the first museum on the mall and it was really important to say that this will be a legal building but also what i wanted was a building that had a dark color because i wanted people to realize that america has often undervalued or understood less than understanding the africanAmerican Experience. There has always been it dark presence in american i thought it would be important on the wall to be not too subtle and to really make sure that this presence was on the mall and thats what tried to do. Every other building on the mall is white. The best part of this was the regulatory agencies, the regulatory agencies had to approve this and a one point we took the design to the regulatory agencies and they finally said we think we accepted that lonnie could you do one thing . Could you make the building white . So i said if you will stand in front of the news york times at the Washington Post and say the africanamerican museum has to be in a white doping than i will do it. [laughter] and joshua remembers he did one of those nevermind. [laughter] tell us about the design, the bronze panels. What is the root of that design and how did the corona come about because to me that is what makes this building the great wall of china and the kind of thing where if you are standing on the corner looking at this building i know where i am. I think its a combination. Like any origin story or different stories the idea that this came from one of two places. Either it came from conversations that josh and i had where we saw pictures of black women whose hands in prayer were at this angle. The architect argues that it comes from a year ruba piece that he saw so im not sure where it came from but i am sure that we got the corona. Basically what happened was once we decided to do it in bronze corona we realized he couldnt have solid runs. You had to puncture at some way because of solid bronze was too reflective. The architect said what we will do is use the computer and pay for holes. I paid too much money just for holes could what we did was we went to new orleans and charleston and took pictures of the ironwork that the enslaved people dead so thats the iron on the building. Every time i see the building i do see the africanAmerican Experience but i see all those laborers that have been left out of history. [applause] b in fact the way we met was because of those laborers who had been left out of history. My great 60 minutes minutes producer nicole young and i were working on a story about the 150th anniversary of the building of the capitol dome and is begun into the research we discovered of course that the dome was built by enslaved people to a large degree. So we started to try to find and historian who knew about that history and thats how we found lonnie bunch. We did the interview for this story. We put the story on the air and lonnie said by the way im working on this other projects. [laughter] which resulted in two more sensational stories for 60 minutes. The building is beautiful but its worthless without a collection. The collection in my view and after reading the book is almost the more difficult part. Let me just read another moment from Lonnie Bunchs utt. When i became the director of the museum i had many concerns and issues that cause me worry that nothing, not raising money hiring staff for managing the bureaucracy of the institution are dealing with the museums counsel caused me greater concern than the challenge of building a national collection. If there was one axiom that shaped the Museum Careers of curators of color it was belief in the paucity of objects that illustrate africanAmerican History and culture. Very few museums had significant artifacts and objects and therefore making the crafting of traditional exhibitions very difficult and usually now you have 30,000 artifacts. And i stand corrected, its growing every day. There are 40,000 artifacts in the museum. How much earth did that happen . I think we had long conversations early on. We decided the smithsonian, people come to see the slipper so we felt we had to find those collections that we were sure we could find them. Then i remembered something. Early in my career i was collecting in california and i was told this woman had a treasure trove of material. I went to her house and she basically said she had nothing and she said well go look in the garage. It went to the garage and there was this amazing amount of material. I never forgot and i thought well maybe and then one night i was doing something that i do, i fell a sleep in front of the television and antiques roadshow was on. I had never seen it and i thought what a great idea. We then created our version and we called it saving africanamerican culture. It sounded more scholarly than the antique roadshow. We did that only began to go around the country to help people preserve grandmas old shawl or that 19th century photographs and they had to bring out materials. We thought first of all lets give things to local museums but if it was really coollooking back to d. C. Im amazed at what we are able to find. I tell one story and i could tell a million of them but for me its a story where we received a call after we had done some of these programs of people knew we were coming pretty received a call from a collector in philadelphia and he said he had material of Harriet Tubman. Im thinking, nobody has anything of Harriet Tubmans but he succumbed the philadelphia because of the very least i will buy you a philadelphia cheesesteak. A bunch of vizco and josh and i end jackie and others, we went and this guy was a huge former penn state football player, 63, 6 feet 4 inches and he was huge and he brought up this box. He opened the box and he pulled up pitchers of Harriet Tubman that no one had ever seen. I said oh my goodness and when i said that he got excited and he punched me. [laughter] it hurt. He pulled out 33 things and punched me every time. [laughter] oh it hurt, it hurt. Then he pulled out his kindle that had all those spirituals Harriet Tubman would sing when she went into the south, swing low sweet chariot and sadly we are all crying. Im crying from pain. And then we realize we couldnt afford to buy this stuff. Its priceless. We danced around it for a while and i finally said okay whats is going to cost . Whats its going to take for us to give this material may basically said you can take it now. The generosity of people are what allowed us to build a collection that once we knew we could find things like Harriet Tubman then i knew we could find other things and an overwhelming of the 40,000 artifacts we found 70 were from the attics and trunks of peoples homes. We really change the way we think about collecting and because of peoples belief in the smithsonian that they could trust the smithsonian they found the collection that you see here. Tell us about the thing that has so much resonance for me and that is that turners bible. What a remarkable thing. I was giving a speech and a plantation in South Carolina and an archaeologist comes up to me and says i can help you find material for that for nat turner and i can tell you where the insurrection occurred. I didnt have time for that. This guy calls every month for six months or a family i said okay lets go pretty takes me and shows me some sites where this insurrection occurred and when nat turner was captured he had a sword that is in the county courthouse and to get a bible. The bible was given to a family that lost the largest number of people during the insurrection and they kept it for years. He it was the sort of souvenir for them. I went on television and radio talking about wouldnt it be great if we had something from nat turner and this woman called us in the curator went down. We had this great title but then we had to figure out if it was the real thing. We did all this research and thats the great part about the smithsonian. People research when the bible came from massachusetts and we found an image of the frontispiece from the 1880s. Wed digitized it so we knew we had nat turners bible. For us once we were able to get Harriet Tubman and nat turner we knew we could find the stuff of history. The price tag of this was half a billion dollars, 500 million that the federal government covered half of that in the rest of it you had to cover. I love this. There are so many stories about the generous people who gave their priceless family heirlooms to the collection and the generous people who wrote multimillion dollar checks to make this happen. One of them no surprise to anyone was oprah winfrey. Let me repeat this to you. Over time she became the largest financial supporter of the museum. One of my favorite opera moments occurred when she called from california during a Council Meeting in 2015 as we neared an important fundraising milestone. There was a discussion as to how we would close the gap. Uber who had already committed 12 million said she liked round numbers so she increased her gift another 8 million. Tell us a little bit about not just oprah but the people who wrote the checks and the companies. First of all let me be really clear that i love oprah. Will everybody does. [applause] one of the reasons we were so successful in fundraising is an amazing Gifted Development staff who did the work and reached out to people but what we also had was a great story. The story was, how often do you get a chance to build a National Museum especially one that explores issues that have divided us as people. Here is your it chance to do something that means as long as there is in america this museum will be on the National Mall. That was really part of the appeal. We decided we had to get money from corporations. We spent a lot of time going to Corporation Foundations but one of the great successes came because of 60 minutes. We had done a 60 minutes piece that aired on a sunday in on that monday i was in new york going to a foundation and i wasnt sure how they were going to react and whether they would be interested. When i walked in they said oh you were on 60 minutes last night. A said yeah. They said how much do you need . [laughter] come on 60 minutes. And so in a way while there were a lot of big corporations and rich people that gave money that was crucial, to me the most important part was creating a membership campaign. We were told very early on that why would you. A membership if you dont have a building and when you you have the building its free. What people didnt realize is that a membership was really about ownership. It was about contributing to Something Special so the fact that thousands of people, over 150,000 people became members for 25, 50, 100 that was really instrumental in us raising all this money. There was big money from oprah that money from so many people who believe in what this museum could be and thats what made it work. Seen at the second story that we did for 60 minutes had to do with your global search to find artifacts from a flagship. As you say slavery was the first Global Business and there were hundreds of flagships. I remember you telling me at the time that you thought, while that wont be a problem because there are so many ships there has to be lots of flagships that you started calling around to find them. You went to mozambique on the trail of the ship but your initial optimism was not well founded. Well, lets put it this way. Im surprised that we pulled this off because i made so many mistakes. I really thought how hard would it be to find pieces of the ship . We initially tracked one down that sank off the coast of cuba. We spent two years negotiating with the castros trying to dive off the coast of cuba. That was not going to happen. Then i was very fortunate. There were many people that we knew throughout the world and accounts in south africa called and said if you can come and help us we think we found a ship. We did the researcher we brought a pieces that you could see in the galleries. It was sunken off the coast. It was sunken off the coast of cape town south africa. And what was amazing when it sank it had items from the mikula tried. We went to the people and sat down and talk to the chief to the chief of the chief did something that was so moving. He gave me a gift. It was a vessel wrapped in shells and when i opened it im trying to figure out what kind of gift is this . Because im from jersey and unlike whats the story here . When he looked at me he said his ancestors have asked that i take this oil, take it to the site and sprinkle it over the side of the rack so for the First Time Since 1974 people could be on their own land. That to me was one of the most special moments of this entire endeavor. What a topic with the trade was not something that happened hundreds of years ago. Its something that affects people to this very day in that to me was one of the great lessons of this process. Ladies and gentlemen at the end of our conversation we are going to take some of your questions and when you came in you were given cards to write a question on if he cared to. What i would like to do over the next few minutes after you have written your question on the card lets pass those to the outside of the room, all the way to the end. Pass it down to the end of your road we will have people come along and pick those up. We will have them look at the questions and if the words are too big they will give them to me and i will read them. Look at this. Heres something thats topical. President trumps first visit to the museum. Thanks. And you wrote this, right . [laughter] before President Trump arrived i was confronted eyes several of his senior staff who expressed concern that the president was in a foul mood and he did not want to see anything difficult. Waiting a long with the secretary of the smithsonian i wondered what kind of two or i should provide. I decided that i would begin the visit in the area that explores the trade. [laughter] [applause] how did that go . Well you know i think the reality is that the great strength of this museum is that we get to educate everybody and clearly understanding slavery and the trade was something the president didnt know much about. What i find fascinating though is that as he went through the museum he began to engage a little more. It convinced me that we could really help anybody and everybody understand history better and as a result of that President Trump became almost the supporter of the museum. [laughter] i said almost. Lets not go crazy here, okay facts the point is that tells me about the power of what this museum can do, that i can educate and challenge just about everybody. My hope is he will come back and learn some more. But these have been difficult days over the last few years particularly with regard to race relations. We have been reminded of ugly, ugly history and the fact that history is alive in some people. I wonder what is the role of the museum . Can a museum be an instrument of healing the country . I think when we created this museum we knew that there was no postracial america. We knew that there was hatred and pain and racism and in fact we have got it here. People send us death threats. People told us we shouldnt build this museum and we knew that this museum had to be more than a monument to the past. It had to be a place to force people to confront the past but also contextualized the world we live in today and help people understand what the monuments men. There were less about the confederacy and more about the struggle of segregation. We want to make sure this museum would be a place that could provide reconciliation and healing but you cant do that unless you grapple with the unvarnished truth. For us the unvarnished truth was the first step in helping the country confront his tortured racial past. We felt that was crucially important at this museum. In terms of the obstacles that you had to overcome, there is an anecdote about a congressman here who was generally a great supporter of the smithsonian but he began to have second thoughts about all of this. He expressed reservations to his secretary of the smithsonian about the museums existence just prior to the groundbreaking in 2012. I was concerned so i immediately made my way to his office. Clearly uncomfortable that congressman applauded my efforts but stated quite strongly that he did not believe that there should be a black museum for black people on the National Mall. He talked about his belief that segregation was wrong but then revealed that he was interested in supporting an idea for a museum of the American People that was being floated in response to the creation of the museum of africanAmerican History and culture. What did you tell him . He said you know i do not believe that there should be a museum by black people for lipiflow and i said me too. I said this is a museum of africanamerican culture and what it means to be an american. This is a broader story that if you think about the story just about black table you dont know your history. If you think this is a story that is just about yesterday, you dont know your history. Once i told him that he said okay i guess im a supporter to because it was really crucial to say to him, think about this museum in a different way than you would normally do. I think candidly that has been one of the greatest strength of the museum, that it says it is a story for us all and that we all can find yourselves, art history and their understanding of america. You know lonnie one of the things that has always struck me as a powerful image is the location of the museum next to the washington monument. We have this monument to our great first president but a president who was a owner and now we have this in the shadow of that monument. What do we make of that juxtaposition in what do you make of that juxtaposition . Its about time. [applause] i think getting the site on the mall was so crucial. Normally when Congress Told the smithsonian to build the building they build it in a certain place. Because this was going to be the last museum on the mall and maybe the africanamerican museum there was a great hesitation to say it has to be on the mall. There was a discussion about could it be in the Industries Building or site of them all that only josh knows where they are and i dont know where they are. For us the big challenge was getting on the mall and there was a great deal of opposition. I remember once a group that was called friends of the mall which meant they werent friends of us. They sent a letter once saying that you cant build this museum on this spot because it will kill the grass. Josh and i said the grasses are at a dead. I think for us it was crucially important to really help the regions that do make that decision see how important was for this museum to be on the National Mall and how this was a story that almost made complete the story of what else is on the mall, the lincoln memorial, the washington monument. I think the greatest moment candidly wasnt groundbreaking, it was the day we convinced the regions to say on this spot there will be a museum that america can never ignore. [applause] hes in the book there was a time that the smithsonian did want the building in the smithsonian thought it would be adequate to have a wing of the National Museum of American History devoted to africanAmerican History, just a wing. I think the smithsonian was very ambivalent going back 25 or 30 years. Should there be this museum . What does it mean for the rest of the smithsonian and it was all because of the efforts of people like john lewis who cap ring in this up every year saying youve got to pass this legislation. What was important for us was to say that the story of the africanAmerican Experience is bigger than a wing. Its bigger than an exhibition. It deserves its own museum. I have to be honest, when i came back there were a lot of people from the smithsonian itself who said that shouldnt happen pretty remember going to meeting early on with other Museum Directors and one of them said we have to worry about what lonnie and josh are doing because that ogling, they are raising money thats going to hurt the smithsonian. And i really had to say is that we were part of the smithsonian. For me the best example is something very small. On the smithsonian i. D. It has the initials of the museum for the national air and space museum. I came back and they said you dont have initials on yours. You are not a museum. I said wait a minute thats disrespect all. They said you are not anything because you dont have words on your card. What i had to do was go to a meeting with the Senior Leadership and say you are going to put it on even though i couldnt sell it on this card because for me that was assembled that this was an equal part of the smithsonian. So much of what we did early on was to fight for respect and to fight that this was an equal museum and as i said i made sure the called josh the Deputy Director and meet the director of the museum not a proprietary. [applause] we mention one republican president at the contribution of george w. Bush cannot be overlooked. I cannot say enough about george w. Bush. I was very friendly. I got to know laura bush very well before i got to know him and laura bush used to ask me take give her a book to read. I gave her James Baldwin and she read them and she said im impressed. So i got to know her and the president and george wishes so crucial because when people were saying this museum should not be on the mall he came out and strongly said of course this museum must be on the National Mall. That helped us put it through congress when we were fighting for the money. Its why was crucial for me at the museum to have president bush and president obama because they were crucial to this. [applause] and then at the opening of the museum the first africanamerican president. What a remarkable intersection. [applause] i knew obama from chicago and he would say to me are you going to get this done so the brother can cut the ribbon . [laughter] that should have been in the book. What health was at the construction meetings they would say well whats going to be delayed. I said i can talk to the president. We need to move a little faster that helped a lot, really a lot. I think theres no doubt that for me it was very special having this open during the tenure of president obama pretty was supportive of it and he was a symbol of what we expected america to be in candidly that day three years ago today was i would argue america at its best. He was a time when you had people across [applause] they crossed racial lines and across political lines and across economic lines. Remember that picture of michelle hugging bush and all things were possible when we come together as a country. I look back sometimes with great longing for that day because that reminds us of the best of what america can be. As i was reading the book lonnie there was something that completely surprise me. There were a lot of surprises but this goes to the heart of who is lonnie bunch and the way you view this project. You write about walking through here alone after it was all set and ready to open. I walked through all 81,700 square feet of the night girl exhibitions saying my farewells and marveling at what we have created. I reveled in the 496 cases of the collection, the 160 media presentations in the 3500 photographs and images but more than anything else i simply said goodbye. Why goodbye . Do you are opening this museum. Why not hello . Because one of the things i know is that an exhibition comes alive when the people come in. It is no longer what i wanted and what i hoped and even all the smart ideas we put forward. It was all for the people so it had been a tradition of mind mine to always say goodbye and letting go. This one was harder for me to let go because i realized we wanted to do this museum as a gift to america. I also realized it was a gift to me. After the exhibition i was done but suddenly i walked through and we went to the discussion of slavery and i saw my old enslaved ancestors and i saw candace lonnie and when i looked at the migration of blacks from the south to the north i saw my grandparents and could understand their lives a little better and when i stood in front of the apartment i remembered how my parents told me how they had to struggle to find decent housing in a segregated area. It really became not just about history, it became a way for me to understand my own family and understand myself in ways i would have never expected. I like to test the patience of the audience for just a moment to talk about a slightly different, hugely different book and explain to you lonnie how i came to realize only recently just how very much the museum means to me and the people like me. I grew up in texas. I have a place in texas. Nobody loves texas more than i do but the history of texas and slavery is texas is the only country on earth as you overcall it was a nation for a few years, its the only nation on earth to codify slavery and its constitution. Recently i was reading this history and i asked myself why am i just finding out about this now . Was i sick that day . I searched the country and i found in a bookstore in detroit my middle school Texas History book written in 1962 and mr. Secretary i would like you to look in the index and look up slavery and tell us what it says in the index. It is not fair. Its not fair. Wow thats pretty amazing. Its not fair. And so for generations of americans we have had a wholly inadequate education about not africanamericans [applause] not just about the africanAmerican Experience but is this museum shows the inseparable nature of the africanamericans. And the entire American Experience. It is the entire American Experience and thats what this museum means to me. [applause] know i promised we would read questions and here they come. Now we are going to get to some good questions. Thank you very much. All right. This card says congratulations, thank you. What is your vision for the museum and the smithsonian in 2050 . If im still here we have got a real problem. [laughter] what i hope is that for this museum it will continue to be the place that contextualizes whatever the issues are, whatever the current confederate statues are Racial Discrimination in cities like alta more and that it should help people grapple with those. For the smithsonian what i hope the smithsonian has learned from this museum that the smithsonian would be a place that realizes that it has to engage younger audiences and it has to be an owner and exploring things that help people find tools to live their lives. What i hope is that everybody will come to the smithsonian and it will still be visited but it will be valued and people will say i come to the smithsonian because it helped me figure out how to live my life better. I wanted to be a place that matters in profound ways and i also want to make sure the carousel is still there because my kids and my grandkids want to get on the carousel. [applause] heres a tough one that you are uniquely qualified to answer this. You created the first green museum on the mall and buy this the questioner meets at this building that we are in meets the highest standards of environmental regulations. What can you do now with all of the museums for the smithsonian now that we are facing Climate Change . I think the smithsonian even in Old Buildings can do everything he can to be carbonneutral and to be sustainable and one of the things that im proudest of is the smithsonian is already going down that road to mick sure that when we do refurbish Old Buildings that we replace outdated hvacs. See what ive learned . I didnt learn that in right at school and you basically demand that the smithsonian contribute to making it the country better in one of the ways is by being much more green. Was alvey and tours they ate team 79 book a fools errand the inspiration for the title of your book click. Absolutely. He was an abolitionist who had gone to the south during reconstruction and thought that he could help bring the country back together and ensure fairness for the Africanamerican Community and he failed miserably. Reconstruction and violence. He was chased out and he talked about a fools errand being an attempt to making the country better but what he was also saying was even if you fail in the bank and make the country better. My notion was our job more than anything else was to take that fools errand and to do what people didnt believe you could do in order to make the country better and thats where the title came from. [applause] on that. 1 of the stories that lonnie relates in a fools errand and this goes to your management style, there was a consultant, highpriced washington consultant that they hired who wanted to get the senior staff together and discuss how they would manage failing to build the museum. You wouldnt let them talk to him. [laughter] i understand analysis about that but that but there was no way we were going to fail so i didnt want to have that conversation. I didnt want to figure out what the obstacles were. [applause] i wanted everybody to look into history and see the faces of people who didnt give up and he didnt quit when they should have. I wanted to look at people and say, here are people that leave to in an america that didnt believe in it then. You are going to be able to dip into that reservoir so he was really upset with me. Im very kind of easygoing but he was gone. [laughter] no place for people who cant dream big. Ladies and gentlemen thank you for being with us. Thank you for your exemplary penmanship and thank you for having me here. I will say goodnight and leave you in the hands of secretary bunch and his final thoughts for the evening. [applause] first of all let me thank you scott. It means a lot to me. Who knew the day i walked into that room to be interviewed by you that would have developed into wonderful friendship . I really appreciate that and i think as you know i get to stand in front but theres a whole lot of people that made this work. Sheba where are you . [applause] she has done so much for this night and all the other stops on my book tour so please thank her. [applause] and let me thank all of you because candidly this museum would not exist without you. Without your support and without your prodding to make us be the best we could be in an essence we are here because of you. My only hope is that you will always support this museum regardless of who was sitting in the chair but that you recognize that this is a chance to say never again will we forget. This is a chance to say our job more than anything else is to remember all those people who were forgotten. Art job is simply to say their lives matter and in fact we are better if we understand who they were, so thank you for being here and thank you for all the years of support. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]. The age of terror and trump. I was really concerned of what i felt because of the corrosive impact that these false narratives, about the fbi, the corrosive impact that those narratives were having on the people of the fbi and the ability to do their work. I feel like if people understood more about the organization, who we are, how do we work, what kind of people belong to the fbi and most importantly, how we make the decisions we do. They are based on specific legal authorities and priorities, policies given to us by the department of justice. Not because of just some personal preference. Watch afterwards this weekend on book tv, cspan2. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we have brought to primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. And be part of the National Conversation through the cspan daily washington journal program. Or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by private industry, Americans Television company in a public servi,
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