330 million americans want to know the state of your health that day . As a young boy, my parents brought me to the smithsonian because i lived in baltimore and it was free. I came to love the smithsonian, so when i had a chance about a dozen years ago to become a regent of the smithsonian, i jumped at the opportunity. I got to meet somebody then who was then building the africanamerican museum, a gifted director who started with nothing to build that museum and now made into one of the most popular museums in the entire country. President obama we are so proud of lonnie bunch and we could not be prouder of the work he has done to make this day possible. David and then i was the chair of a search committee, and we looked at many candidates. It was clear that lonnie bunch was the best person to be the secretary. He knew the smithsonian, he was committed to the smithsonian, so it was an easy choice. We are at the housing museum , part of the smithsonian, and lonnie bunch is the 14th secretary, the first africanamerican to be selected and the first historian. Is that right . Lonnie that is right, and i am very proud and glad to be with you today. David i will ask you tough questions anyway. Lonnie i appreciate that. David now that you have been secretary for a while, has the job and as good as you thought it would be, and are you happy to have it . Lonnie no one knew what it was like during a pandemic. The smithsonian is a collaborative museum and Research Centers that does not always blend, but because of this pandemic, people have come together, crossed lines with their creativity, scientists, historians, educators, so for me, i am really glad, because i am getting to see what the smithsonian does even in the most difficult of times when it comes together and brings creativity to bear. David how did you operate terrain the covid19 situation . The zoo and the 19 museums . Lonnie i realized that once we shut down the buildings, we need to the smithsonian to be operating, so we went online and created educational opportunities, portals that would allow educators to get our science, history, arch. We made it so scholars could continue to do the research and scientists could continue to do the work that they do, but the reality is we recognize that now, as a result of this virus, we have to rethink so much about the smithsonian. We have to think about how we telework more effectively. We have to think about once people come back, what does social distancing mean in a museum . Because, as you know, the major thing that happens in a museum is people who do not know each other come together around things like a shuttle, so are people going to want to come together during a pandemic . So thinking about how we create community, even with social distancing. David the smithsonian is not open. This museum is open and the national zoo is open. Lonnie right. David why did you open those two first . Lonnie i wanted to figure out, how do we open the rest of the smithsonian . The zoo because it was outdoors, that was easier, but also, this museum because it was large and also has parking, because there were issues with transportation, so basically, these were the test case. If the virus then begins to come down, to allow us to slowly reopen the rest of the smithsonian. David now, where did you operate from when covid19 was prevalent . Lonnie well, because there were some guards that had to work, i thought i would go into the office, but i realized if i went into the office, some other people would come in, so i ended up working from home and i learned to master zoom and other technologies i am still fighting with, but i am basically working from home every day. David now, museums have been around for thousands of years, but with zoom and virtual technology, why do we now need museums . Why cant you just look at the screen and see what you need to see . Lonnie there is something powerful about the object, the fact that you can see the Space Shuttle right in front of you is really powerful. You feel the connection. I have seen throughout my career people stand in front of a copy of the emancipation proclamation or chuck berrys candy apple red cadillac, and it stimulates conversation, so, in essence, what we should do with the smithsonian is find the right tension between tradition and innovation. We have to recognize that the traditional stuff is good, that we want people to enjoy it, but now we also realize that as a result of the pandemic, more people are comfortable receiving content digitally, so it really just means we need to find the right balance between serving the millions who never get to a museum and the millions that actually come to the smithsonian. David during the covid19 closings, we had some race riots in reaction to the death of a number of people, such as george floyd. How is the smithsonian reacting to that . Lonnie i thought it was really important to realize that in some ways, the smithsonian is the glue that holds people together and can bring people of different political views together, so when all of this angst and pain happened as a result of the murder of george floyd and others, i realized that the smithsonian had a role play, that we should help the role to play, that we should help the public grapple with this. One of the things we did is we got support from bank of america and created a program that looks at race, community, and our shared future to basically say how do we create town halls, an opportunity for people to come together and talk about what has divided us . How do we use the resources of the smithsonian and our resources on africanamerican culture to give people guidance to help them live their lives . David what about the diversity in the smithsonian workforce and your executives who help run the museums . Lonnie the smithsonian, like a lot of places, has work to do. We have got strong and diverse things. But the smithsonian needs to do a better job, because if we are going to help the public grapple with these issues, we have to model it. David the secretary of the smithsonian, when we had the Lafayette Park riots, or whatever you want to call them, he was Walking Around, looking for artifacts. Any truth to that . Lonnie old curators cant break their habits. I was talking to someone and looking at the materials for the walls, collecting for the smithsonian, but really directing, saying, this is what we should have. David so you are Walking Around saying, can i have this, and the police are going, sure . Lonnie i had to show my id. [laughter] what is the biggest challenge you have right now in fundraising, dealing with members of congress, what is the biggest challenge . Lonnie the biggest challenge is to make sure that the smithsonian has the Stable Funding it needs. Because of the pandemic, we have lost millions of dollars because people are not going to restaurants and shops, so making sure we have the strongest financial model, because what it really means is we have got to rethink some things, so rather than just reopen our shops, we have to build more ecommerce, so this is really allowing us to think creatively about what the smithsonian should be. I came to chicago and loved it and planned to stay there the rest of my career, when i got the call that said, would you like to come back and help build the museum of africanamerican culture and history . David you took the job, but why did you take it . There was no plan, did you know all that . Lonnie i was not sure how many nos there were. David so lets talk about your background. You grew up in new jersey . Lonnie in the garden state. David garden state. What did you want to be when you grew up . I assume not in the smithsonian . Lonnie a story that is a true story is my grandfather died the day before i turned five, and he would read to me, and he would read books, and one day, he was reading a book, and it had a picture of school children, and it was probably from the 1860s, and he said to me that the picture said unidentified children, and then he said something i have never forgotten. He said, isnt it a shame that people could live their lives , die, and be unidentified . And that led me to want to understand what their lives look like, and i tried to imagine what were their jobs, were they happy, and it got me interested in history, so that was the first step. The second step was growing up in the town i grew up in, there were very few africanamericans. In fact, i was the only africanamerican in my elementary school, and there were people who treated me horribly and others who treated me wonderfully, and i thought if i could understand the history of this town, maybe they would understand me. David driving through the south, you could not stop in many places except one place he would take you. Lonnie we would drive to North Carolina in the jim crow era. We would load the car up with food and blankets, because he knew we could not stop, and he was the only driver in those days. David you could not stop because there was no place lonnie there was no place where they would let black people stop. He was falling asleep and he pulled off into a motor pool, he pulled in and my brother and brother were asleep, and i was watching him, and he went out to smoke a cigarette, and i noticed he was standing under a sign that said white only, and i was terrified that something was going to happen. He finally comes back in the car, he recognizes that i was really worried, and he said to me, i have never forgotten, you know, this is my america, too, and it reminded me that no matter what happens, this is my country, and i want to do what i can to make it fairer. David why did he bring you to the smithsonian . Lonnie to me, when we would go south, we would go past the museums like in richmond and petersburg, and i was a civil war buff, so i would wanted to stop, and he would always find an excuse not to stop, and i remember on the way back, taking out a map and saying, 20 miles before we get to richmond or petersburg, i would alert him, but he would always keep going, but then, instead of going to new jersey, pulled into washington, and he pulled in front of the smithsonian, and he said, here is a place you can go to learn and not worry about the color of your skin, so for me, the smithsonian has always been a place, for a 12 or 13yearold kid, this was a place that said, here you can be what you want. You can learn all you want and not worry about the color of your skin. So being secretary in a way was a way of thanking the institution that embraced me. David so you came to washington to get your undergraduate education at Washington University in history. So you are africanamerican male, and this is the 1970s. So were there lots of Job Opportunities . Lonnie there were very few teaching jobs, and i remember at the end of my graduate career, i was broke. I was living on a teaching assistants salary, and there was a returning student who was 40 years old, and she said to me, you should go down to the smithsonian, because her husband worked there, and i said, who works at the smithsonian . It is where you take dates because it is free. And her husband introduced me to the secretary. I did not know who the secretary was. I have jeans and a big afro, not getting a job, very comfortable, and he said, we might want to hire you, and i said, really . I would like to work at the museum of history and technology, and he said, we do not have any jobs there. We have a job in the air and space museum, and i said, i have a degree. He said, you would make four times if you come and work with me at the air and space museum, and that is really how my career began, by luck. David you also met your wife there . Lonnie air and space was everything. I met my wife there and became a curator there and learned about the wonders of the smithsonian, so my life has been shaped by the smithsonian. David to go to the california museum, what was that like . Lonnie i went away to be the curator of the first africanamerican museum that explored issues of race, and i went there before the olympics of 1984, so my big job was to do a history and exploration of blacks in the olympics. The smithsonian taught me how to be a scholar, not really how to be a curator. David then you moved to chicago, is that right . Lonnie that is right. I was there and was not going to leave, chicago recruited me, and i really was not planning on going, but i had a meeting that the mayor and the governor of illinois, and they said, this is a city that has been tortured by race, and if you could come and be the only africanamerican running one of our major institutions and do well, what impact you could have, and that appealed to me, so i came back, came to chicago, and loved it and planned to stay there for the rest of my career, when i got the call to come back and build the africanamerican museum of history and culture. David the secretary then called you. He said, come back and build this museum, and you came back and took the job, but why did you take it . There was no money, no land, no plan. Did you know all of that . Lonnie i was not sure how many nos there were. I knew there was no plan endocyte but i did not know there was no staff. I knew there was no plan and no site, but i did not know there was no staff. But what i realized being an africanamerican running a museum in chicago, it nurtured my soul. I was really happy. But then i realized if we could build this museum, we could not only work with the ancestors but help america, and that is what brought me back. David the Museum Opened right before president Obama Left Office in 2016 in a very memorable ceremony, but before we got to that ceremony, you had to get an architect to build the building, get a site, raise the money, and get the artifacts. Lets go through that. With the money, how much did it cost to build the museum . Lonnie the museum basically cost 550 million to build, and we raised about 620 million to do it, half paid by the federal government and half by wonderful philanthropists and donors. David did you ever think you could raise that much from the private sector when you started . Lonnie when i told my mother i had to raise that amount of money, she said, that is more money than god can count. Slowly but surely, it began to work. David you got the money from the congress and the private sector, and then you had to figure out what are we going to put in the museum . Artifacts. How many artifacts did you inherit . Lonnie zero. We had no artifacts whatsoever. At some point, i thought, what if we just do it without artifacts . But it is the smithsonian. People come to see the ruby slipper. One day, i sort of fell asleep in front of the television, and i woke up and antique roadshow was on, and i had never heard of it, and i thought, what a great idea, so i stole the idea and we called it africanamerican treasures, and we took curators and went around the country to help people preserve that 19thcentury photograph, and then people would bring things out and say, do you want this, and suddenly, we found Amazing Things that i was not sure we could find. David how many artifacts total did you get . Lonnie 40,000 on display. 75 came from basements, trunks, and attics from peoples homes. David how many people have visited so far . Lonnie over 7. 5 million people. David it is one of the few museums at the smithsonian where you cannot just walk in. You need tickets. Did you expect demand to be that great . Lonnie i did not. I knew it was going to be popular, it is the smithsonian, but it really has become a pillar for africanamericans and nonafricanamericans, and we expected 4000 people a day. We were getting 8000 a day. We had to actually say you have to have tickets to get people in, because the crowds were so great. David so all of the congressmen and senators calling to get tickets . Lonnie i am everyones best friend. David president bush signed the legislation, and president obama was president when it opened. I think he said to you, make s open while im in office. Lonnie lets talk to the president. He says we have to move a little quicker. David as a result of covid, how have you had to pivot, and how has the organization had to pivot . Lonnie one team to look at the virus, to give me the best medical advice working with the cdc and others, and then i put together a team to look at what is the new normal, what does it mean when we reopen, there will still be a virus concern . What does it mean that we have to think about doing more digitally . What does it mean that we have to protect our staff . When this pandemic hit, 93 of the smithsonian staff went to telework. How much of the work can we do that way . One, it taught me to think differently and use it as an opportunity to think about structure and the way we do business, so my goal is to come out of it better and stronger. David so when the smithsonian does reopen eventually, will people be required to wear masks . Lonnie everyone will be required to wear masks unless you have a medical issue, because i think our job, first and foremost, is to keep the staff safe and the visitors safe. David what lessons have you personally learned, and how would you change your life as a result of this . Lonnie one of my biggest lessons is i do not have to put my fingerprints on everything, that ive got good people working. In other words, i used to think i have to be there. I do not have to be there. The other thing i learned more than anything else is the fragility of human life and the fragility of fairness in this country, so the pandemic, the dual pandemics of the virus and racism have really inspired me even more to struggle to help the country understand itself better and to find a country that is free and fair. President obama this National Museum helps to tell a richer story of who we are. It reaffirms that all of us are american, that africanamerican history is not somehow separate from our larger american story. It is not the other side of the american story. It is central to the american story. President bush i want to give a shout out to lonnie. Its important to understand this project would not and could not happen without his drive, his energy, and his optimism. David lets go back to opening day. You worked on this for lonnie 11 years. David 11 years. Started with nothing. It opened in the summer of 2016, and who was there . Who were the dignitaries . Lonnie it became a whos who. On the stage was president and mrs. Bush, president and misses obama, i was seated next to john lewis, the chief justice was there, other senior members of the smithsonian, and in the audience were a whos who of almost every political figure was there, so many people from entertainment and sport, and what i was so moved by is the people who wanted to participate in the program, Oprah Winfrey and will smith and robert deniro, so it really became more than i could ever imagine. It was less an opening of a museum and more a celebration of a culture. David so were you worried that something would go wrong that day . Lonnie