Thats this evenings prime time lineup. Heres a dismissal smithsonian secretary lonnie bunch. Good evening. On behalf of the Smithsonian National museum of africanAmerican History and culture welcome to a fools errand book tour a conversation with secretary lonnie bunch and scott kelly. Please welcome to the stage interim director of the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture doctor spencer crew. [applause] good evening. What a wonderful crowd terrific to see this hall filled with so many people and we are very glad to have you here. I think you for the introduction. Its my pleasure to be here to welcome you to our building. Happy third anniversary. Its a great day for the museum but never wouldve happened without all of you here in this audience. Supporting us and encouraging us as we went forward. Several months ago about 90 days ago and was happily working as a professor as a professor i had a phone call from a good friend he told me something that made my heart sink and that was that he was about to be announced as the 14 secretary of the smithsonian institution. [applause] for me it could have been more exciting he put a clinker in there. He asked if i would serve as the interim director of the museum. I do know what to say to you about that. [laughter] the second time we have 10 million hits on our webpage, 21 books done by the scholars at the museum and we look forward to continuing her fundraising with their campaign this will assure the quality of the events and museums move forward we continue to do the things that make you proud of us. During this could all taunt critical time of the museums existence it is my priority to continue the developing outstanding programs with some help from the new secretary we can continue to go forward to raise the standard you expect out of us all along this evening is a continuation to have great programming. So it is my pleasure to introduce the author to share this book a fools favor a fools errand. [applause] thank you. This book tour is generously supported by toyota. Thank you to toyota. Please follow us on twitter, facebook and instagram and join the conversation using creating and now as we continue lets welcome scott kelly. [applause] thank you so much its so great to be with you tonight. They were setting up the chairs earlier today and i was thinking theres no way they will get that many. Look at this crowd. It is unbelievable. Fantastic. Thank you for being with us tonight. [applause] i particularly want to think two members of the audience. Lonnies mother is with us this evening. [applause] and his wife is with us this evening. [applause] and i went to pay particular notice to them because of course as we all know behind every great man there is a surprised woman. [laughter] the first time i came to this site with lonnie we were wearing hard hats in the floor did not exist. There is an enormous hole in the ground. He said this will be that this will be over here and this will really be spectacular and i didnt say this but i said in my head that is a lot of dreaming. But look at us now. Three years. [applause] three years the museum has been open six and a half million visitors. In its first three years it is an unparalleled triumph thanks to the dreaming of lonnie. [applause] ladies and gentlemen we have a very short film that will help me to introduce lonnie to you and lets have a look at this film about the 14th secretary of the smithsonian institution. Creating this museum gives us a chance to manifest the dreams of many generations. The lost dream act. This is for the united states. To provide opportunities for us. They will find those ideals were often met through sacrifice and a belief. And a belief. This is more than a building but a dream come true. History despite its pain cannot be un lived. I want to give a shout out to lonnies unders important to understand this project would not and could not have happened without his drive and energy and optimism. Eleven years we have dreamed and toiled for this day. Today dream too long deferred is a dream no longer. We guarantee as long as there is an america this museum will educate and engage to ensure a full story of our country to be built on the National Mall. In may the smithsonian institute. I hope they can be the place where people look to not just to visit but to help them because for me it is about helping the smithsonian be the place for america that helps it grapple with what his into understand itself and its role. Author lonnie bunche. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] [laughter] your cutting into his time. What a terrific book. Its really not a book about building this magnificent monument with the most magnificent monument of the 21st century but overcoming adversity and putting a Team Together and the creativity involved and then to master all of the obstacles that come along you did not see coming. So first i want to ask you one of the founding principles that you mentioned in the book , you mentioned a man by the name of jenkins who had lived in the shack that was once home to enslaved persons. Mister jenkins told you that words that have shaped my career if you are a historian then your job better be people to remember not just what they want to remember but what they need to remember. How did that inform the work that you did here at the museum quick. He was a sharecropper who was a grandson of the enslaved woman who lived on a plantation his whole life outside of Georgetown South carolina when i went to do research to interview him he wasnt sure who i was or what i did but there at the end of the day he said its important to make sure you dont just give people what they think they want but you give them what they really need. And for me what that really means is that everybody understands they are shaped by the africanAmerican Experience and how do we make sure that a museum gives people things that doesnt just commemorates and celebrates the challenges and tries and demands that they look and all the dark corners of the American Experience and he taught me that. When we did the first story of the museum for 60 minutes that in your mind this would never be simply a museum of slavery. I think it was really important to realize slavery is essential to understanding the American Experience in africanAmerican Experience but thats not the totality of 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 pondering slavery or segregation but also to tap your toes to Aretha Franklin or somebody from the hiphop world i have no idea who it is. [laughter] but the goal is simple to say i wanted this museum to tell a full complex picture that didnt have simple answers but a lot of shades of gray and ambiguity like life. You are living in chicago when the job came around and you were not at all sure you wanted to take the job. There is a line that i love the charge of conceptualizing and building a National Museum and potentially on the National Mall was frightening enough, but even more unsettling was the reality that this was a museum of no. This is a museum that started with nothing. It had one member of the staff besides myself. No collections. No idea that it would be where we are today. No money raised and candidly there were very few people who really believe this would happen. So my notion was am i willing to take the leap to believe that no matter how long it took, we could turn the no into a place that matters. s lets talk about the incredible beauty of the building itself and the architecture. You were given a lot of different plans to go over and some were unsolicited that they knew what the museum should look like. This is my favorite, the most original unsolicited idea was sent to our office in 2008 and as i sat at my desk my executive assistant struggled 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 for as we review the material i realized this architect had developed a design of the building in the shape of the black power [laughter] that design did not make a short list. When i saw the black power fist i realized there are many things i could get through congress and dont think it was that. [laughter] but we realized once we got the spot on the mall. That was the big deal. And once we had it as my Deputy Director we spent time thinking what should it be quick so many people came up to us should look african . And not sure what that meant. Should look like slavery . I knew i wanted a museum that spoke of spirituality, resiliency and optimism one that would be the first green museum on the mall. But also was a building that had a dark color because i wanted people to realize that america is often undervalued or been less than understanding the africanAmerican Experience. Theres always been a dark presence in america i thought it would be important not to settle to make sure the presence was on the mall and thats what i tried to do. Every other building on the wall is white. The regulatory agencies. [laughter] had to approve this and at one point we took the design and they finally said we will accept it but can you make it white . [laughter] so i said if you will stand to the Washington Post and say the africanamerican museum has to be in a White Building that i will do it. [laughter] so he did one of those nevermin nevermind. [laughter] tell us about the design. The bronze colored panels that are called the corona. What is the root of that design and how did the corona come about . To me that is what makes this building the great wall of china and the kind of thing that if youre standing on the corner with this building i know where i am. It is a combination like any origin story there are a bunch of stories the idea this came from one of two places. Either conversations that we had where we saw pictures of black women whose hands and hair were at this angle but the architect argues that comes from a europa piece that he saw. Im not sure where but how we got the corona because basically what happened is once we decided we would do the bronze corona we could not have solid bronze but you had to puncture it otherwise it was too reflective so the architect said we will use a computer make holes why pay too much money for holes. [laughter] so we went to charleston to take pictures of all of the ironwork that enslave pass people did and that is whats on the building it is an homage to the fact that so much of america was built by people we never know just the africanAmerican Experience but all those laborers left out of history. [applause] in fact to the way we met was because of those laborers who were left out of history. Migrate 60 minutes producer and i were working on a story of the 150th anniversary of the building of the capitol dome and as we got into the research, we discovered the dome was built by enslaved people to a large degree. So we started to try to find the historian who knew about that story and thats how we found lonnie bunch so we did the interview for the story and he said by the way im working on this other project. [laughter] which resulted in two more sensational stories for 60 minutes. The building is beautiful but it is worthless without a collection. The collection in my view and from reading the book is the most difficult part. Let me read another moment. When i became director i had many concerns and many issues to cause me to worry but nothin nothing, not raising money, staff, managing the bureaucracy or dealing with the council caused me greater concern than the challenge of building a national collection. There is one axiom that shapes the Museum Careers of curators it is the belief of options that illustrate africanAmerican History and culture. Very few museums have artifacts and objects that explore race so making the crafting of traditional execution exhibitions very difficult and unlikely you you have 30000 artifacts. 40000. How on earth did that happen quick. We had long conversations early on. This is the smithsonian they come to see the ruby slipper so we had to find those collections but we werent sure where to find them saw earlier in my career i was collecting in california i was told the woman had a treasure trove of material so i went to her house and basically said she had nothing and to get rid of me she said go look in the garage and it was an amazing amount of material and i never forgot may be and then one night i fell asleep in front of the television and suddenly antiques roadshow was on. I had never seen it. What a great idea. So that we created our version called it saving africanamerican treasures which sounded more scholarly. [laughter] so then we would go around the country to preserve that old shawl of that photograph and then i brought out the items so i will tell one story i could tell a million but its a story after we had done some of these programs so people knew we were looking we received a call from a collector in philadelphia who said he had material of harriet tubman. Im thinking 19th century historian nobody does but he said come to philadelphia at the very least ill buy you a cheesecake cheesesteak. [laughter] this was a former huge penn state Football Player and then to pull out the pictures of her funeral nobody had ever seen and we were just done. I said oh my goodness and he got excited and he punched me. It hurt. [laughter] he pulled out 33 things and punched me every time. [laughter] it hurt. Then he pulls out all the spirituals this hymnal she would sing into the south. Now suddenly were all crying. Im crying from the pain. [laughter] and then we realize we could not afford to buy this. It is priceless so we dance around and said what will this cost and basically said take it now. The generosity of people to build a collection that i knew we could find others of those that we found 70 percent was from the trunks and attics and basements and because of peoples belief in the smithsonian we found the collection you see in this building. Tell us about the thing that has so much residence. I was giving a speech and a plantation in South Carolina and an archaeologist says i can help you find material and i can show you where the insurrection occurred. And then this guy calls every month for six months. And then shows me some sites. The bible was given to a family who lost the largest number of people during the insurrection. And they kept it for years piquant was a souvenir. And then the senior curator went down and there is a great bible so is it the real thing . And researching the age of the paper are. And then we found an image from the 18 eighties to digitize so we knew we had turners bible. The price tag of all of this was half a billion dollars. The federal government covered half of that. The rest of that you had to come up with. There is so many stories of the generous people that gave their priceless family heirlooms to the collection and those that wrote multimillion dollar checks and no surprise was oprah winfrey. Overtime she was 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 how we would close the gap. Opera, who had already committed more than 12 million said she likes rounded numbers so she increased her gift another 8 million. [laughter] not just oprah but all the people who wrote checks and companies to make this a reality. Let me make this clear. I love oprah. [laughter] [applause] everybody does. One of the reasons we were so successful fundraising was those Development Staff who knew how to reach out but we also had a great story how often do you get a chance to build a National Museum cracks in here is your chance to do something and then to see we had to get money from corporations and one of those great successes came because of 60 minutes. We did a piece that aired on a sunday on that monday i was in new york going to the foundation i was not sure how they would react or if they would be interested when they said you were on 60 minutes last night. They said how much do you need . [laughter] so come on 60 minutes. [laughter] so it away while there were big corporations it is a membership campaign. What people dont realize the membership is really about ownership and contributing to Something Special so the fact that thousands of people became members and that was instrumental to raise the money. Big money from opera that money from so many people who believed what the museum could be and thats what made it work. The second story had to do with artifacts from a slave ship. Slavery was the first Global Business and there were hundreds of slave ships that you said that will be a problem because there are so many there has to be a lot of artifacts he started to call around and you and i ended up in mozambique on the trail of the slave ship but your initial optimism is not wellfounded. I made so many mistakes im surprised i pulled this off. How hard could it be to find pieces of a slave ship . We initially tracked one down and spent two years negotiating with castros. That would not happen so there were those that we knew throughout the world and a colleague of south africa called to say if you can help us we think we found a slave ship so we did the research and product pieces we can see in the galleries it was sunken in south africa. Sixty minutes came with us to mozambique when it sank it was from the mccluer tribe so we went to the people and we sat down to talk to the chief he did something that was so moving and said i give you a gift it was a vessel wrapped in shells it was just dirt im trying to figure out what kind of gift is this because im from jersey. He looked at me and said ancestors have asked that i take the soil to the site of the rack to sprinkle it semi people can sleep in their own land. To me was one of the most special moments of this entire endeavor because it taught me the slave trade was not hundreds of years ago but still shapes people to this very day and t