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 u