You go to a Department Store and as a young person youre not afraid to ask questions of your parents. I would say, why is there a colored restroom, why is there a white restroom . Why do signs there for, and water fountains and white water fountains . I was told that that was the way his. I said, why . Arts we all people arent we all people . I did not go to school with any africanamerican or other ethnic groups. That has greatly changed. Much to my delight. I went to undergraduate school at clemson university. I went there for Architecture School and they were one of the first to admit an thecanamerican into african and Architecture School. It has been a wonderful experience for me personally to see the change that is happened. I first worked with the native american community, we did a Cultural Resource center for the smithsonian. Over 12 years, you learn a lot. You learn a lot about the culture that is different than yours. Hoping that will be the case when people come to this museum. Weve all learned definitely Something Different by being involved in this museum and im hoping it will have the same change affect on the people. Where are we standing . 30 feet below grade the museum. Look at history gallery. The history dollars our collection of 50,000 square foot dollars on three different levels. The lust for in the museum. What youre seeing is a chronological sequence of dollars that basically tell the story of africanAmerican History for the Middle Passage all the way to modern times as you extend outward. What Design Elements will visitors find here . And it is the lower space here. The space is expanding and contracting inside the mezzanine levels. The seasons ceilings are not. 5 feet. With intimate relationship things in the lower levels. Whereas if you step out of the main timber, your experience of the 65 foot room. I think theres an interesting dichotomy of space. Your company as part of the design Team Involved in the construction. Tells a little bit about this. , by the time the museum opens next week, we will have worked on the project for close to 10 years. The dean of African American architects and late partner who passed away during the competition, he and the fremont group, they had altered the predesign and programming studies two years prior to when the competition was announced. Was in competition paper about a year. Several along with other groups came up with this theme that won the contest. What you see here today is 400,000 square foot of museum where 60 of the building is actually below grade. One of the things youll notice about the competition is the relationship and it is inverted. As we started to study the building, we found that we had a much more intimate relationship with the Monument Grounds by pushing more of the program below grade and that makes sense. History galleries do not want natural light. Interesting relationship from top to bottom. Lonnie bunch of talk about them all as being like americas front yard. What was behind the conception of the history gallery and how it connects not only to the mall but the exterior . The main thing that you see as the atrium. The reason that its addition on the north side is we can physically except light. It is nice to see that into the chamber. As you move lower end loader, you are going further and further back in time. That is one of the unique sequences into the building is there is a sentient into the light. Ascension into the light. Talk to me about the symbolism. Narratives will you give credit to ralph applebaum. Our job is for the base building package within the history gallery which describes the volumes. Some of the more interesting pieces that you see, the segregated railcar, we had to go down there and catalog that and put civil things in it like sprinklers, electricity, mechanical systems within it. There are some pieces that had to go into the building before the roof was on. That was critical to the completion of the project. 60 of this is lowgrade, it is a race to get ground level so we can move upwards. What do you hope visitors will take away from the galleries . We get this question a lot. Often in comparison to the 9 11 museum. I think that this museum benefits from is the advantage of time. The 9 11 museum is a story that has been told over 15 years where we have centuries to discuss here. Fors a different barometer how we are doing as a society. Heres a snapshot of that history behind you. Tell us a little bit about the choice for this design element . What you are seeing here is from top to bottom, and introduction to what you will see through the history galleries. Tomorrow, the Smithsonian National museum of after American History and culture opens its doors to the public. Cspan will be live from the National Mall with the 10 00 a. M. Outdoor dedication ceremony. Speakers include president obama and county Museum Director lonnie bunch. Hankis georgia congressman johnson talking about the significance of the museum. To him and the country. Can you give us your views on the importance of the new africanamerican museum for the country . It means so much to be collective psyche of africanamerican people who throughout the history of this country have been beleaguered by a lack of knowledge about our history. When you dont know how great , thenorefathers have been it is hard for you to capture in the present moment how great you are and what your future potential is. Do is to museum will restore the ability of African Americans to reach back into history and see how great we have been, how our forebears able and strong and accomplished. As each successive generation use those accomplishments which , it doesding to Daily Nothing but strengthen our people and strengthen our culture and it strengthens the fabric of america which is comprised of a multitude of threads. Africanamericans being a major thread in the history of this great nation. The founding director of the that he seesid this as being the american story through African American lines. Lense. That is a great observation. I would add that it enables africanamericans to peer into our own unique background and to a proud of our competence Compass Minerals a congressmans a comp was accomplishments. The present moment is the most , to bent phase of living able to look back onto the past provides us with a clear hope and even guideline for our future. We have accomplished so much in the past, there is no reason we cannot continue to cut through all of the challenges that we face uniquely as africanamericans and continue to build a tremendous, positive history as demonstrated by the election of the First American africanamerican president eight years ago. He has been elected twice and has served two terms and is leaving office with a very positive popularity rating or favorability rating. About what he is a representative of us, what we have been able to accomplish despite the obstacles that were thrown in our way since it of the color of our skin. Can you tell us what the museum means to you personally . It means i have a home. It means i have the ability to go and savor the compliments of my past accomplishments of my past. We have cut off part of our challenge, part of our challenge is that we have been deprived of our history. It has been a systematic, calculated approach to handling the africanamerican is to cut ,hem off from the history forbid them from learning from the history and what history there has been has been skewed so as to not be accurate. Museum has the opportunity ouread past re cast history from a long time in the past, restore a Knowledge Base about our culture that then creates a collective psyche that is much more healthy than the one that we have now. Our collective psyche of the people is damaged right now. This museum will go a long way towards our ability to heal ourselves. It also shows others who decide to come to find out about our history were not africanamericans, gives them a greater appreciation of our role in making our country the great nation that it is today. Thank you very much. Thank you. The Smithsonian National museum of African American history and culture opens its doors to the public the first time saturday and cspan will be live from the National Mall starting that connect lock amu can for the outdoor dedication certainly. Speakers include president obama and found amusing director lonnie bunch. Certainly ning ceremony live on saturday at live a. M. Eastern watch anytime on cspan. Org and listen live on the cspan radio rep. App. Leading up to the debates between Hillary Clinton at donald trump, we look at past president ial debates on saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. This saturday, the 1976 debate between gerald ford and former georgia governor jimmy carter. We were faced with heavy inflation, over 12 , faced with substantial unemployment, in the last 24 months, we have turned the economy around, we have ,000 more americans since he has been in office, we have had a 50 increase in unemployment. The 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan and president jimmy carter. Towhen i made my decision stop all trade with iran as a result of the taking of hostages, announced that and i have consistently made sense maintained that if they are released safely, we would make delivery on those items which iran owns. We had adequate warning that there was a threat to our embassy and we could have done what other embassies did my the strength and security or remove our personnel. Before the kidnapping takeover took place. And the 2000 present a debate between george to be bush and Vice President incumbent Vice President al gore. Balanced the budget every up. Pay down the national debt. Put medicare and Social Security in a lockbox and protect. Im going to take one half of the surplus to Social Security. One quarter of the surplus for important project. I want to send one quarter of the surplus back to the people who pay the bills. Watch past president ial debates on saturday night at 8 00 eastern. Watch anytime at cspan. Org and watched listen on the radio app. Russian foreign minister spoke at the United NationsGeneral Assembly in your city. He discussed russias military efforts in syria and criticized u. S. Intervention in the middle east. S is almost administered almost 20 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, at the anniversary century session, a good number of processes were heard at this turning point in the development of the world. The keynote was acknowledgment of the fact that humanity in its transition from a bipolar world order to developing polycentric and democratic systems have faced challenges and threats, to us all. We can only overcome by working jointly together. It was rightly stressed that there is a need to change the very philosophy of interstate communication by excluding attempt to interfere or imposed Development Models two countries. Unfortunately, the idea of mentoring, supremacy, exclusiveness realization of ones own interest by any means which has been deeply rooted in the minds of political elites of western countries, the detriment of our efforts to promote cooperation, the outcome of arrogant attitudes and feelings pushing for unilateral and reckless solutions, we see this in the middle east and north africa as a result, the foundation of the world stability is being destroyed. It is time to learn the lessons. Nearly think to russias military assistance, the syrian legitimate government, it became possible to prevent the collapse of the of that country. Our engagement provided impetus to the establishment of International Syrian support groups and start a meaningful pluggable process so that they could determine the future of the country themselves through an inclusive dialogue of all ethnic and religious groups. And sat down to the u. S. Security resolution and was embodied in recent agreement between russia and United States as cochairs of the International Accord group. It is essential to prevent the destruction of these agreements and to carry out unbiased and impartial investigation of the incident and to live especially since there are quite a few people wishing to sabotage these agreements. It is important to fulfill the demands of the Un Security Council to separate the socalled moderate opposition from terrorism. And the response ability in this regard rely to the u. S. And members of the usled coalition. The Syrian Crisis cannot be resolved and the Current Situation cannot be rectified without the deletion of isis and associated groups. We will not be able to have a human 10 situation humanitarian situation that will improve without reaching out the terrorist groups in order to need to strengthen and start negotiations without preconditions in line with the resolution to sabotage the process with a specific people abroad with their mentors and supporters has been a negative impact on the uns reputation and leads us to believe that the reason lies in an attempt to try to change the regime. Game, wethe zerosum have seen this in ukraine. Anticonstitutional attempt to overthrow the government and that the refusal of the ukraine to facilitate mixed agreement the agreement. Using these complex for ones goals has been great to all. The last meeting of the group gives us a cautious basis for optimism. It is only through the on a simple mentation of all agreements that we will be able to have any opportunity in the area to have equal and security as with statehood in the oecd 20 years ago. Cannot substitute a truly collective communication of efforts without any winners or losers. Acceptable toon use sports to make hostages of clinical ambitions which has always brought people together to strengthen friendship and confidence to usurp the right to predetermined outcomes. Not honor those who flaunt their allegiance to fair competition but are flouting the principles of independence and autonomy of using sporting competition in this way. We cannot use the philosophy of antihero or animal farm where are all animals are equal and some are more equal than others. In the 21st century, it is indecent to play mentor to everyone around. Or launch unilateral ventures to conduct geological experience that cost millions of lives. Or engage in active territorial blackmail. Ownncial profits for ones at play or establish the criteria deems one country great. This is unworthy of the principles of freedom and equality on this great nations build and grew. We will mark the 70th anniversary of the nuremberg trial decision. This cautions us against for granting the lessons of world war ii. Reminds of of the catastrophic consequences of attempts to determine the fate of the world by suppressing the legitimate interests of other states and peoples. The freedom of expression and assembly as an excuse of condoning radical movements that express not the ideology and glorify not these and our conferences. Accomplices. Dictate the need for consistent effort to put a solid barrier in the way of neonazis and strengthen International Agreements and rally the young generations around the idea of justice and equality. We want everyone to take part in the world of that the full of youth and humanism. If you want to be a future that is just and give all people the opportunity to choose their own development, this implies the need to learn to respect ones partners and respect the cultural and diversity of the modern world. This means we need to come back to our origin and norms and principles. Approachtment to that thereaffirmed in russiachina declaration on increasing the role of International Law. The observance of the principles of sovereign equality, monitor. Should be common measure noninterference of Foreign Affairs should be common measure. If we dont put an end to this not be ableosophy, to Counter International terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other threats. Fighting terrorism, we cannot use double standards. We need true universal pooling of our interests in order to put together a broad antiterrorism front as proposed by president putin from the stage a year ago. The tragedy of iraq, libya, syria, yemen has proven the need to stop opportunistic attempt to advancing political power. Terrorism ideology. It holds use hostage in many regions of the world. Adopting a Security Council resolution in order to mobilize the effort to illuminate limit this evil. Eliminate this evil. Radicalism,hing out we can also look at settling the palestinian conflict. We need to get it out of the stalemate which we are focusing on from the meeting from the first of july. Also worried about the nonproliferation it is important to support strategic stability. Some are trying to replace this zero and weclear see that many countries that have Nuclear Arsenals are taking part in these agreements. We also put into the test the nonproliferation treaty. Some parties can find a common language. At compromises to start negotiations to establish a free weapons of mass destruction zone and means of russia has supported the liberation of humanity from the threat of Nuclear Weapons. However, the advancement towards Nuclear Disarmament must be made but the full conside