Means to be american. Sudden and since, the best museums in history help us recognize that the story that we tell, regardless of what the community is, the stories of us and inform us will make us better as a nation. I think part of what youre doing is you are illuminating some of the dark corners of the american experience. In many ways, the discussion around slavery, slave trade, and really the origin of americas contested. Some people dont want to have these conversations. Yet, i would argue that you cant understand who you are as americans, not understanding that early history. You cant understand how our politics, really our foreign policy, our culture was shaped by slavery and struggles over slavery. In many, ways i think the work that you are doing is really valuable because it really allows us to understand something that often we dont Pay Attention to. The other piece i think is so important is that part of what we are trying to do is make sure that people understand how this is been shaped by an international kind. That in many ways, americans, we are in some cases very isolationist. Until we had to get passports for canada or mexico, only 14 of us had a passport. I think the notion of helping americans understand that they have always been shaped by International Issues and not to this day we shape the world by our own culture, i think thats an important contribution as well. Thank you, dr. Bunch you right so beautifully and your great storyteller. Especially memorable to me are your stories of the enslaved women from the alabama plantation who rose each morning, fed, and left her children before indictment over in the cotton fields in the hot sun and had a few years not to let slavery ship reprimanded ian hope. Joanna brody buncher took in the laundry of other families, of her own so that her children and grandchildren did not have to work more there are so many stories and weve been talking about it and theres so much, so much to learn. So much to be enhanced and strengthened by. So, lonnie, thank you so much for being a great storyteller. Thank you for being a most fabulous Museum Director as secretary of this facility. Thank you for being here today and i will nail ask professor carey taylor to open up the chat room and we will have questions about the bunch may i, mister mayor, make one comment before questions . I think one of the things that is really important, that i discovered throughout my career and you are working on in the museum is the importance of women studies. I think often womens stories get sort of second shift in the notion of leadership, women that women play in organizations, in movies and the notion that women carry a burden of struggling for fairness and freedom in the same way they are struggling to raise families. I think that is unbelievably powerful and i grew take great solace from the role that women have played in recognizing that i am standing on a lot of their shoulders. I think is important to make sure that people recognize that often history is told through the lens of a male perspective. I think that misses so much of what is essential when we need to understand about our past. That is excellent. And of course, we had here idea phenomenon who we will honor our museum. She was like rosa parks, she wasnt very big but oh my the power of that courageous women. The right courageous women. Thank you very much. We will open up the chat room and professor taylor will monitor that for us. Thats right, this is a reminder, please post questions in the chat and i will relay those to the secretary and the mayor. Just, maybe as a point of privilege i was wondering, secretary, if you might comment on the museums mission against complying with the d. C. Museum, about the backdrop of this dynamic period of political change. It opened and particularly im thinking about the this phase of what we might refer to as the second phase of black lives matter protests triggered by the killing of george floyd. Has that one impact has not had on the museums mission and our thinking about the museum. Anita has had an impact on the museum and the smithsonian writ large. I think that, for example, what is really important to me is to recognize that museums often forget, part of their job is to collect today for tomorrow. To make sure that we put in place all of the Rapid Response teams. I first sent them out to ferguson years ago to many when black lives matter and washington d. C. Has those confrontations, we were there to collect a lot of material and i also sent the Rapid Response team to collect january 6th. For me, what is important is that i realized that too many times in my career, weather at the smithsonian heard from places i want to tell certain stories but they werent there. I felt was really important in 90 years ago when i was associate director at the smithsonian, ive actually bringing curators together quarterly to say what should we know today . What should we collect today that somebody needs to know 20 or 30 years or 50 years out. That really is important to me, but i also think its essential i believe that at times and places, cultural institutions have to contribute wildly to making their country better. Helping the country heal, helping the country run. I think that if a place like this misogyny and is only about yesterday, it fails. If it uses yesterday, to help some sand today and mauro, to understand and contextualize the challenges black lives matter, january 6th, and a time when the public needs to find a trusted source. Museums tend to be that source. What i want to do is never abused their relationship and the trust people had with the smithsonian. I want to use that to educate, challenge, prod, to help us find reconciliations. When will be very easy for institutions to say that is not my issue. I think that in a crisis, if you are not contributing, if youre not fighting the good fight, if you are in a place of history indonesian history to help understand today than what you are doing is making history into nostalgia rather than the valuable thing it is. We have a question from professor tiffany silverman, who asks if you might address the challenges around honoring the past as we become equitable to other perspectives. I think, specifically, she is thinking about monuments area and symbols of the past. I think one of the things we know as historians is the evolution of history, right . The Sweeping Change of interpretations. I believe very strongly that one never should erase history. One should prune history from time to time. There ought to be opportunities to do two things. Tell people understand what monuments really mean. When considered monuments but they really when they were built, what they tell us not just about the historical moment they are celebrating but the moment when they were created. Like so many confederate monuments were created either during the era of jim crow segregation or later during the civil rights movement, when lawyers were sending a different message about the change that the country is undergoing. I think its important for people to help understand that. I think, in some ways, if i could change one thing as a historian i wish i could find a way to help the public embrace ambiguity. In some ways, we tend to look at things, we americans, like everyone we tend to look for simple answers to complex questions when history teaches us nuance, complexity. It teaches us that there are Amazing Things that happened when you have debates around shades of gray. In a way, i think that in history if it could really help people understand evolution and change and subtlety, what a major contribution. Im going to paraphrase a question from, i guess, a request year from my ex our excellent studio Melanie Delgado asks if we could comment on the changing dine changing political dynamic from president bush through President Trump. I think shes asking, specifically, if you could address some of the material that you deal with in the book. I think that while it is crucially important for my success in the system smithsonian, i think any leader of a complex issue has to be political. It doesnt mean that you have to have specific things you do, we have to recognize, as mayor knows, then you have to build allies. You have to work with people who have politics that are very different from yours. So, for example, when i came back from chicago to become head of African American museum, i knew i needed a created by car partisan sense. I also knew that, candidly, i grew up in the Southern Office and they said lets see this blackface . Democrat. I also knew i learned, however, in chicago that i got a lot of support from the republicans from the north side, democrats from the south side, so i used that. I had folks from different politics taking around. Therefore, people could see that i could sort of handle things from at least as nonpartisan as i could. It didnt hurt that a friend of mine became senator, and president. Okay, that didnt hurt. The reality is what i realized is if i couldnt get every president to care about the museum, i couldnt get the support i need on the hill, i also thought it was a missed opportunity because i thought a museums job was to educate everyone. George w. Bush was a big supporter, in fact i will always celebrate him because there are many people who said this museum isnt worthy of national law. It should go somewhere off the national mall. Hes too appetite of course needs to be on the mall. I quote him every time. That helps. With president obama, it was an interesting challenge because initially even though we were close friends, the notion was you dont want to be seen as simply the black president. The nation was how to provide support and if you noticed during the second term, he became much more visible and vocally supportive with the great supporters of the museum. With President Trump who is important to be able to reach help expand the notions of what African American culture was, its impact on voters society. It wasnt always easy, but he gave me something to do. Cheryl harden love is reflecting on the impacts of walking through the doors of no return in the castles of west africa and she was hoping to get your thoughts on how it is we connect the african and american stories in both the museum in washington and also in charleston. I think one of the things is really to tell the truth. That these things are connected. Completely connected. That the International Considerations led to the creation of the united states, the the united states. But the slave trade was the close first global business. Really, how do you understand that is powerful. I also think that it is important to recognize that we are so connected today financially that it makes sense to recognize how connected we were in the past. I have been struck by something that happened to me. I spent a lot of time trying to find relics where pieces of a slave ship. I went around the world, nobody with the catchers which i was not successful with. It shows you my limited ability as diplomat, but i looked around, i had to bring together scholars, the uk, south africa, brazil, we began to map the ocean floor trying to find these wrecks. Because, for years, every time in the summer i taught in south africa during the 90s and some of these folks were now we we may have a ship off the coast of cape town. It may we think of the slave ship, can you look at that . We went in our expertise, found the ship, turns out it was a ship that left lisbon in 1794 around the cape of storm to pick up 1200 people from mozambique. We went way back to the new world. So i felt an obligation to go to mozambique and the chief of the people said i have a gift for you. He gave me a vessel, it was gold, wrapped and shells. When i opened it, it was full of dirt. I was trying to figure out, what are you saying . He said to me something really powerful that made the connection. He said i would like you, my ancestors would like you, to take this soil, to take it to the psych site at the rack and sprinkle it over the side of the rack so that for the first time in some of the 94 my people can sleep in their own grave. Im crying, i moved by it. When we comes up, in her twenties probably. She says to me, my ancestors on that ship in every day we say his name. So, it made me realize that this was not about yesterday. It was about today, about tomorrow. That helps transform how i thought about things, but it made me realize how fortunate i am to get to explore the passed through the lens of museums. Esteemed alumni Norman Seabrook has a personal question for you, secretary, mr. Seabrook was living in washington d. C. In the 70s and 80s and he was curious about your experience traveling, transferring, from howard to american university. He wanted your comments on that. Oh k. All right. As the mayor knows, i always tell the truth. I fell in love with a girl at america you one day and i thought, oh what love, i will transfer, will live our lives together. We did for a year and she dumped me. So, you know . What can i tell you. The joy of not being 19. My colleagues son edwards, thank you for sharing your thoughts. She would like you to discuss history from the point of context in modern times and the importance of that. She has often we have requests for facts about historical figures and the context of those facts may not be desired. I think that one of the great challenges of being a historian or someone who cares about history is to realize the context is in. That without context theres not understanding. So, i think that sometimes the public thinks that history is a simple fact, a date. The reality is that the contact around the factory date is what gives meaning, obviously gives opportunity for differences of opinion for what that meant. I think it is crucially important, when i built the African American museum i thought i had to do two things. One is that i had to make sure that everything we did was within the framework of helping people understand the political the second challenge was to understand that context alone sometimes leaves historians and museums to sometimes be in search of a grand narrative. I thought that was important to humanize history. To reduce history to human scale. Both by contextualizing, but also as you go through history there are probably more quotations than any other museum should have. You will see many stories such as the story of joseph tremblay. We all know a lot about African Americans gaining freedom. But the story of joseph tremble is someone who had that paper and gain his freedom in 1850s, but he knew that that paper was the key to his future and his familys future and he was terrified that he carried with him all the time, he might get destroyed by relation or lose it. So he wasnt very good with his hands. He did what he called a handmade teen bomb, this ugly piece of tan and he put the paper in that tan and carried with him every day. To protect him. Every night, he would come home according to family, he would take out the paper and he would talk about the fragility of freedom, the importance of freedom, the rarity of freedom. He kept that for five generations gave it to us. To me, that is what i mean by humanizing. You know people have freedom. To see it in the right lands of that particular individual was really very powerful and i think made it more meaningful for so many people. That is what i mean about finding the right tension between contextualizing and reducing the human scale. Our student, Tyler Mitchell has recently seen the Netflix Documentary highlighting the African American museum and he notes the role of quincy jones in that film, among many, many other celebrities who have been a part of the museums creation and he was curious as to what it was like working with all of these high powered, high profile folks, each of whom were sincere in their desire to see the museum succeed but also had other types of needs. That is nicely put, basically you are working with personalities i learned something very early. My very first Board Meeting i came to you before i even started the job they sat me down next to oprah winfrey, next to bob johnson, next to the head of time warner and the head of American Express and i am terrified. I am a kid from jersey. What the heck am i doing here . So the next day, after the meeting can i didnt do very well. I was like stuttering. The head of the smithsonian at the time called me into his office and said you look a little nervous. I was like, you think . Basically he said something to me that was so helpful during this process. He says those people are the top of their game. They are the best in their field, so are you. More importantly, they want what you are about to give them. That is to build a museum. So you, yourself, view yourself as the equal. I reviewed them completely as equal, but i realize that if i lead i could learn how to work with them. Each one was different, quincy down jones, i will tell you quincy jones with the best. When i go to sequence events for the first time, huge house in Beverly Hills and you walk in and like there are oscars and emmys just laying on the ground. I am like, oh my god. Its quincy jones. I am there a little early and he is finishing up a meeting and he introduced me to this person and it was somebody from sweden. Could you dont spend a lot of time in sweden and i just come back from sweden, i said oh, i really like sweden and there is a museum i love in boston about a ship that sank that was very important and pretty jones went, wait a minute, you know that . That is my Favorite Museum in the world. You opened a closet and he had a whole shrine to the boston museum. Because i could talk about the boston museum, we began to have this conversation. The second thing that made us close was, this is really silly, but when i am 14 years old i think the most beautiful person in the world is penny lipton of the mob squad. I forgot that was a sex wife. I was telling him about peggy lipton. He called her and she came over. I am like, oh my gosh. It is so embarrassing. I love you when i was 14. Somehow, i was in that cool. That allowed quincy and i to have a great relationship. This is something of a followup, we have a certain number of Staff Members and other associates of the international African American museum who are with us today, i am wondering if. I know youve had conversations with the mayor and other Staff Members, but im wondering if you have thoughts on maybe some of the mechanics of building the museum and building a staff . Well, i think, i wouldnt be one there in people who know much more than i. I really think one of the things about is that if you do it right you build a staff the recognizes that realizes they cant pay you what they are really worth and you make sure you give them to engage with interesting people who come to town but to feel that, regardless of what part of the organization they are on, that they have wasnt accounts. No one has a monopoly on wisdom. You want wisdom to flow from all sides of the organization. The other thing is to recognize that what you do, when you build a museum, if you often dont see how your little moment, the project you are working on, how important and how transformative it is. Ive always said to my colleagues that they need you to bring your a game. I need you to be better then we can all imagine because i dont want you to spend your time thinking, what does this mean for amy . I want you spend your time thinking, what does it mean in public was mean for the ancestors . If you do that one, then youll get the acclaim and sense that all of the people who worked on the African American museum feel the sense of ownership and wonder. They feel that they contributed to making the country better. That was worth more than i could ever pay them. Professor silverman, asks, for your comments on the relationship between the smithsonian and the military around issues of cultural preservation and she is thinking especially in particular of the rebooted Monuments Program in the smithsonians rescue initiative. Well, in some ways i have always felt that the smithsonian is an amazing place that is blessed with resources that not everybody has. It has the ability to work with anyone. Anyone will work with us, will help make us better. I have been so moved by the work the smithsonian has been doing our generations, but especially over the last decade on sort of cultural preservation, whether it is actually going also to help rebuild many of the shrines that were destroyed. Weather was helping haiti rebuild so much after the earthquake. Whether after haiti it was the work to be done helping communities that have faced floods in recent years in the united states. Then, in some ways, the smithsonian has this Amazing Group of people who know how to preserve and conserve and sort of say things that are in the way, the smithsonian has own version of the monument. Whose job it is to basically show that we can be a value in ways you dont normally expect. I think that one of the things i would normally like to see more of is a close relationship that the smithsonian and the military, especially military museums and the like. In some ways, while we have relationships that are ad hoc. I was very close to the people building the marine corps museum, but it really isnt a kind of formal relationship. I like to see more of that, because most people dont know that the large collections in the smithsonian our Natural History. That naturally there 5 million butterflies, but our Natural History came from the military. So much of the early mid smithsonian material material came from exploration, the largest collection in the the American Military collections. Theres belong history from the 18 082 today. A couple of questions here im going to try to collapse. The first of which, is on the current access to the museum and donna factor wonders if it is easier to get into the museum these days given covid . The second question is, if you might talk to efforts and volunteer engagement in the museum. How ivan tears been included in the museums activities . I think the museum is close now everything is digital and virtual. To be honest, its still one of the largest ticket its opening. It is very gratifying, but its also very interesting because all the people call me because im visible but, i called a a bigger and a half ago from a woman who said she want to get to the museum. I said, you know, i dont do, that my staff doesnt let me do that anymore. He says, no, dont remember me . I was your girlfriend and seventh grade. Now, she said her name. I dont remember at all. When you are 13, you remember every crush you had. I didnt believe this but it was such a good lie i gave her tickets. So, i think that i am flattered and humbled that people would want to get in the museum. To give you an idea of the numbers, we expected 4000 people a day and we had 8000. Is the most diverse museum in the world. What really moves me more than anything else is its 30 of people who come into the museums say they have never been into a museum as an adult and that this is the first time. It really provides kind of Educational Opportunity i want, the kind of interaction. When museums are at their best, they create informal communities. People come together dont know each other around an artifact, exhibition, and the conversations take it in so many different directions. I think thats what happens time and time again at the museum. I am so pleased and will probably open soon as it gets a little warmer in d. C. I am so pleased that people find it has become a pilgrimage site. It is become a site that has people understanding the challenge of race in the country today. I am, i feel very fortunate that i was part of a group of people who got to do something that mattered. And on involving volunteers . Oh yeah, volunteers. So about, that i get carried away. One of the things that was really important to me was to create an extremely active volunteer program. A program that would do what you traditionally expect. Readers, doses, but also a lot of research researchers. We are a lot of people, one of the things we did was we transcribed the friedman papers. The papers that were really important in regard to access, volunteers. We have thousands of volunteers who come into that. Now they do it from home. More and so we one of the goals was i wanted as many people as possible to own the museum. I felt that if the alert group that on the museum they became the champions. In some ways, one of the things i love the most and i miss the most is being able to walk through the museum and just hang out with the volunteers and learn so much. I move that theyre 85 and 35. I really think that you can tell the success of a museum by how diverse and how excited its volunteer corpss. Im going to try to tweeze in a couple more questions. We are running close to our deadline. Norman is thinking about facts on Voting Rights. He asks, how does the museum continue to address contemporary issues civil and human rights . I think it is both drying from the work thats in the museum that talks about what it meant to struggle for Voting Rights. Our long history was how many people from suffer, how much last there was, how much creativity there was and trying to figure out how to achieve that struggle. One of the things the museum makes clear is that one of the the African American community made the evolution from enslavement to freedom, there were two things that were key. One was education. The second was protecting the freedom of using the vote. We tell that story. We also im no longer the director they also do a really nice job of programs that connect the past to the president. For example, i know that when and the john lewis gave us material about his involvement with both the Voting Rights act of 65 but also the struggle to protected several years ago. We try to make sure there are those connections. You think the African American museum has i think you will have the same thing is the benefit. People expect it to have a contemporary residents. As long as you build that in, and i think you can fulfill those needs, and people are expecting. That may be related to this question. The question is, whats our elevator pitch for the international African American museum in charleston . Put on the spot, how would you make that pitch to someone as to why they need to visit and support the international African American museum in charleston, South Carolina . There are silences in history that hurt us because we cannot hear them. The story that you tell on is one of the silences. If we can hear that silence, if we can be brave enough to confront that history, if we can learn from both the pain and the resilience of those who experience it, if we can learn from that collaborations across racial lines to end slavery or the struggle for freedom, if we can do that, what a nation we could be. You can do that, really, very well at the museum. If you use that, you will have to pay me. [laughs] are there plans with the African American museum in d. C. , are there traveling exhibits, or are there plans for something along those lines . There is literally been 25 traveling exhibitions across the country. Even before the museum opened, i started with traveling expositions. We are doing both traveling exhibitions in the traditional way, as well as virtual exhibitions, so people can engage. My belief is that if the African American museum in d. C. Is successful but doesnt help other institutions, that it failed. What i hoped the museum is, its a beacon that draws people to washington and then pushes them back to charleston, through detroit, los angeles. In essence, what we realized, one of the great contributions is the museum created conversations around history. What we see is, after the museums opening, more attendance of the African American museums and museums that talk about civil war for example. What you want to do is use the museum to sort of beat that drum for the power of history, the importance of history, and recognize that while there are stories that are you need to see how those stories play out in charleston, in other museums in other communities. So thats my key. Heres a setup question. This must be a riley relative. A question is, have you ever met anyone who does not know when to quit or what it means the meaning of the word no, i. E. , joe reilly . Joe reilly is, without a doubt, a friend and special guy. The times he served as mayor, his vision for this museum, it is desire to share his expertise with teaching. I wish we were all as good as joe reilly. What a nice guy. There is probably nearly a dozen other mostly comments of thanks and praise for your work, secretary. But im going to turn it over to mayor rightly to close this out. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer that many questions from the group there. Well, it is my pleasure. As i said, you guys got me out of a bunch of meetings. Believe me, i am a happy guy. I also want to say that, and i mean this in all sincerity, i have profound respect for the mayor, the profound respect for the city of charleston, its history. I have a lot of friends in charleston who have made me better as a historian, as a scholar. I look forward to being able to, even if i have to stand on the back and peak over someones shoulder, to be there for when this museum opens. It will be a special day because its going to continue the process of how we, as a country, better understand itself. How can we as a country illuminate corners of darkness, find silences that need no longer to be silent. In many ways, this museum will be transformative. Thank you. Thank you professor taylor. Profound thanks. All of us whove seen and heard a great man, a great american, citizen of the world. The smithsonian enhanced the leadership in the national African American museum was created because of the doctors leadership. They have all contributed, are contributing to enhancing our society. Our understanding and beautiful respect for each other. Not to mention, you are one of the kind. Among other things, you are a great writer. I keep pushing everybody whos been on this today, read the fools errand. Its a wonderful book. Inspiring. I look forward to seeing you in washington sometime soon. Rest assured that when the museum opens in charleston, hopefully in june or july of 2022, you will be there and you will be speaking and we will be standing with you. Applause and gratification to create the national museum, give support for the International Museum here and for your big, all around great person, ever had the opportunity of meeting you. Thank you so much. Thank you. My only hope is when they run me out of the smithsonian, they will let me come to charleston. The doors are open. All right. Listen, thank you all very much. Great pleasure with you all. Take care. If youre enjoying American History tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of upcoming programs, like lectures in history, the presidency, and more. Sign up for the American History tv newsletter today and be sure to watch American History tv every saturday or anytime online at cspan. Org slash history. Middle and high school students, its your time to shine. 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