Elections 2019 may 26th on g w. Its a 1st time that like people have a history that other people can see people need to understand they would have to tell just a whole range of the most. Sadness to. You know happened. It really brings you. To focus on what are people have been through. And yes we have made strides but we have along with lee. Its astonishing you still can get a ticket i still get emails us you know that says tickets are now available for january and you know this is an october secretely theres an insane demand. We didnt realize that it would become a symbol for people who want to believe in an america that lives up to its stated ideals but also has become a kind of metaphor for all thats going on in the country today were one. I saw a picture. Of a black woman in sort of an exit taishan and prayer hands were at this angle. And as we. Gave it r. J. And the designers said we know thats also an angle that you see in some you sculpture in your room or posts. I started to kind of think about the museum is this crown form. It became very clear that this triple header. Was actually a beautiful weapon cups meant in this universe. I really love the idea even just the she was in. A sort of. Presence. I have an unusual sort of relationship with the history because i have been writing about the history of an effort to to build a National Museum in my dissertation so ive been very carefully following sort of what had been going on in congress in various sort of public and private initiatives to start start a museum. This is a museum but containing. One. 100 years it was demanded dismissed. No collection no money but never given up. Here today it stands like a bronze in the middle of washington d. C. The National Museum of African American history and culture. Slavery and freedom and very large exhibition as you can see almost 18000 square feet but its a large time period that we address. 15th century looking at africa and europe going all the way to the development of the nation and by the time we get to reconstruction around 877. 00 so its very important for people to understand that africanamericans have always been pushing this notion of freedom against a backdrop of a nation that was coming into being based on the notion of liberty but steeped in slavery. Directly behind me is the display that speaks to the paradox of liberty on the platform we have several voices the freedom so there Thomas Jefferson a core president of the United States still maintaining enslaved men women and children while he was putting together the document for the declaration of the constitution when we talk about equality its a very important think about africanamericans pushed not only by the definition of freedom and push for how they need some coming into being but equality is also at the core of that equality freedom. And so thats important think about today. In essence africanamericans have always done one thing really well and that is they have forced america to live up to its stated ideals busy africanamerican experiences says if you really want to treat all people equally let us push you to make sure you do that and in some ways my expectation is this museum wall ways be at the heart of pushing in america to fulfill its streams for fill its promise. That. Slavery was. An engine that drove the Global Economy from the 15th through the 19th century in very real ways in very tangible ways that created a foundation for our notions of race today back created a foundation for economic wealth for nations for corporations. Around the around the world. And were living with the afterlives of that. When you think about the store. And how it unfolds in the museum you go down right 60 feet and you start at the year 1400 and slave trade International Slave trade begins they are you know in it and the exhibit is dark and the ceilings are lower you know and so the whole lobby off of the space is appropriate for that time and in history when the slave trade began and then you ascend and you move up and that story line really does work well with the building layout i mean its an integrated. By the ante bellum period the u. S. Is an economic powerhouse based on cotton that was cultivated by inflated africanamerican men women and children during the Transatlantic Slave Trade here you see the same thing. And so its not just an american story because again Transatlantic Slave Trade period as you see in our submission we look at the nation states in europe we look at denmark we look at Great Britain we look at france we look at spain we look at portugal. And our 1st complete work into this history has been the discovery of a ship off the coast of south africa the size as it was a ship owned by portuguese owners left lisbon and 794 so near decades after the American Revolution in the midst of the haitian revolution for independence and it traveled for liz. Been to mozambique i mean hes coast of africa. There was loaded with 512 wasnt beacons were enslaved. Whats left from the ship is very close to the ship wreck site thats been battered and pounded on the coastline of south africa in very cold waters in turbulent waters nearly 100 yards from shore. So whats left is small pieces of timber. What were once are in shackles. So very few objects but very put in the context of what this ship did and the enormity of the trade very powerful larger cities. And these iron bars for instance. Slave traders for hundreds of years to be used to help create ballast in the bottom of the ships of all kinds. And slave ships they became a way of helping to countermeasure their cargo that was living. Is something you know that the museum does which i think is really profoundly powerful which is that when lonnie spoke about wanting to make sure that all the artifacts were real i was so happy because we forget about the aura of real things emmett tills coffin or the real a real bow of a ship which has been taken from the bottom of the ocean and brought back to you. And there is an extraordinary i think to man to really understand a history that really had not been been told and i think its. Remarkable that that lani and everyone involved they not only had to build a museum they had to build a collection and that was one of the really big challenges that the museum in this was recognized even in the 1960 s. And seventys i think the head of the sony is that well how are you going to establish a black museum that theres an interesting collection and so we began the van and sort of identified broad subject areas that we want to do explore if you want to explore the civil rights or you want to explore the role of rhythm and blues music in the 1950. 00 s. And sixtys so we have that broad circle then i would encourage curators to go out and say ok how do we fill in that circle so then the question was why do you find so we can with the strategy most of the 20th century in the 19th century when a piece of the 18th century would still be in basements trunks and attics in peoples homes so we created the you know we stole the idea from antique roadshow and we basically went around the country and i would say that and. Maybe an 8 year period being really active we collected over 45000. 00 artifacts of which probably 70 percent came out of basements trunks in attics the Current Museum really tells everything the good the bad the failures the struggles the disappointments the absences you know the violence the debts i mean its all its all there to to reckon with and to think about. After a world like competition the architects feel free lent max bond and david and jay well awarded the contract for the design and construction of the museum in 2009. I 1st got wind of the project somewhere around 20042005 when george w. Bush the president of the United States at that time established a commission. Simply to study the possibility of the potential of a museum being located somewhere in d. C. A Museum Dedicated to africanAmerican History and culture. Its one of those incredible projects really its sort of a lot of weight but also a lot of pride for me im really. Just thrilled to be an architect of this time to be able to sing again that this is a very useful picture that i always use which really gets you to understand where you walk in the budget this is the last to build a plot which is this red highlights this is the white house here and this is obviously washington is one that lincoln is here but this is the motion to moral grounds and this is the mall coming here so were really at this hinge moments he would not call up the whole thing. This project was beyond just 11 firm one person and that it would take it you know an allegiance and a collaborative effort and you know as an africanamerican i feel that i can bring you know a certain authenticity to that effort having grown up during the Civil Rights Era and experiencing firsthand some of these seminal moments in our history. We were we were the museum owes its most striking design feature the socalled corona to the canadian british and i could takes a david james. As an architect i draw inspiration from a lot of things but i have a deep interest in africa and africas diaspora so the u. S. Wherever it may be the sort of trajectory of history. Im interested in it because i simply im african i was born on the continent i grew up in europe and i have a deep connection also to my family is from and what my roots are. And i dont see any conflict in that at all. But i. Also im just from a creative point of view. Completely fascinated by the Creative Arts of the continent and i think that. There is a lot in it which teaches about the way in which to navigate the complexity of the contemporary world which i just think is not referenced or used i think the kernel is the unique sort of signature because it is the one thing that you see from a distance its. You know its the thing that you know that people engage with from all sides as theyre coming to the to the building and its quite unique because when you look at the assembly of all of the buildings around the national now among the National Mall a lot of them are very neoclassical and even the American History museum which is the next door neighbor is still a kind of abstraction that classicism and theyre sort of a large white boxes that sit on pedestals and so this sort of deconstructs i think you know that the design that you know that david david alger as the lead designer of the team sort of came up with really begins to unpack and deconstruct that and gives it a different sort of presence on the mall. This is one of the 1st sketches from start to define the frame. Of the building. This is this was called option 3. Which was looking at the notion of the pavilion the building of the landscape so this is really explaining this idea of the upward force and lights filtering and this building within a building thats a shape that you dont often see in western architecture and im hard pressed to think of another building that has that explicit a shape that is moving upward and is aspirational that is celebrate tory above ground so these are the early studies which looked at how we were kind of controlling the program as you can see from the project to me and theres a lot on the ground and in the beginning we were trying to bring quite a bit of that program above ground to try to reduce costs so we would look. And how that could work is not straight and how the corona would sit on top but what the final scheme started to become so this one of the early studies was that we started to look at reducing that base and really starting to think about bringing most of the building on the ground until we started to get to this form that what starts to come up is just then the corona and the corona is the main form of the building. In thinking about the materiality of the building we we realize it of course frankly been problems were going to need to work with so beginning to even try to make it out of real blocks and this is a piece of real bronze if its really. The problem this is not its not construction a very profitable way to shoot what was going to puta was the tone i would see the texture of the way in which it collects of light so we started to look at the material where the it was really other 1000000 but also coated with a bronze liquid bronze coating thats been polished and burnt and subs are realize that this was starting to give us the modeling that we really really enjoy its sort of the catch the light very beautifully you can see that it is light you could lift it up very easily and you can see the sunlight how it just picks up the luminosity of the of the light and the nuances and the shadow even in darkness it has a hostage quality and the notion of bronze being this this ancient material that. That suggests jeopardy and impermanence and quality. Really sturrock away that goes back centuries and that that was an i. Q. As well. For. The. Moment and then theres also just the story of the pattern that that it has and and why it produces this kind of dappled light on the inside and thats a reference to the tradition of africanamerican and those enslaved in free blacksmiths who made a lot of the screens that you see him places like charleston and new orleans. Lonnie bunch says Something Like its history hiding in plain sight which is something we should be reminded. Of. So once we understood the form and we realized that we wanted to make a cube form we realized that the front of the mall the front entrance is south so its really the hottest part of the building and we wanted to make a welcome porch which would mediate the climate from the outside to be inside of the Building Muscle we conceptualize this idea of the large porch which would be a device with a water pool which you cool you and start to bring you into the climate of the building. The porch is another element sort of like the corona that is making references to. Sort of by cultural forms of of architecture essentially it is a new transceiver steel and concrete structure held on to columns and its been 50 feet out and its 210 feet across and when youre under it you really feel like this is a home during play like a floating pop it because the structure is. Really Something Big and generic feet. But some historians that said it actually comes from western africa migrates to places the caribbean like haiti. And in terms of it a 2 room form that has a kind of around on at with the haitian revolution and there are a number of of the enslaved that are taken by their masters to new orleans in the form then migrates to new orleans and so the ports then becomes a sort of space that mediates between the house and and the street because its very hot and you know and so you could sit out there you could you could converse with people so becomes a very very very important social space. If you want to understand american notions of resiliency or optimism or spirituality youve got to look to the Africanamerican Community but even more importantly than that africanamerican experience has shaped the founding of the country shaped the writing of the constitution shaped politics shaped culture shaped education became the sort of battlegrounds in the 1950. 00 s. And sixtys on how america should be seen in the world so you had many push and pulls it out of the sort of right right of africanamericans to be able to tell their own story and deal with difficult history is. The idea for a Museum Dedicated to africanamericans was 1st put forward in 1915 by black the terms of the civil war years later the call list picked up and put. By members of the civil rights generation was a day similar 62003 president george w. Bush authorized the legislation the prettiest devilish revenue Smithsonian Museum in the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture. Want to thank my thank you but this place is more than a building. On september 24th 2016 all those who contribution to the realisation of the project celebrate the fulfillment of the doing of this and. It is a moment the last of the others on the small world on this day 1009 year old ruth bona and her great granddaughter will ring the bell of the oldest black Baptist Church in the usa and officially opened the museum. For her ruth one of the spog was born a slave in mississippi only a few generations separate the president from history. And. A few weeks after the opening america elected a new president. To. Run life. As a historian i really believe that history is this amazing tool that give you guidance and tools to live your life and so i think that by helping people 1st of all understand how the construction and. Blackness and how what that really did was create a false sense of difference between people and to help people understand how in many ways that notion of calling somebody the other really allowed people to brutalize people and treat them in our ways so we think that if we can help people understand the roots of that and begin to see these people as individuals rather than as a group we begin to have the kind of conversation. Through 100000 square feet of exhibition space spread across 8 levels to museum explores americas history through the lens of the africanamerican experience. The change in america exhibition is the 3rd of the history exhibitions so it followed on the exhibition about slavery and freedom and then the era of segregation we wanted to have this exhibition take the notion of a series of changes that have happened leaning from the Civil Rights Movement and especially the black Power Movement through the last 5 decades of American History. We allow people literally to create we are their memory with images with artifacts but we allow them to think through their own reactions and create their own most recent history rather than us trying to interpret their history for them. Telling the story what was happening in the black power era its really enter to find the plaque art some of it in fact from about leaders. If the black Arts Movement that that blac