sprang upon its feet. each week american history tv, american art ti facts, takes viewers into historic sites around the country. the smithsonian museum will open a new mall in 2015. we spoke about the new facility. later, we travel with mr. bunch to the storage site where he shows us some of the artifacts that are going to be on display in the new building. >> right now we are in the offices of the national museum of african-american culture. this is where my staff will be until the museum opens in 2015 six years ago i started with a

staff of two, no place to know for sure where the museum was going to be, no sense of what the building would look like and today we have a wonderful architect who has created this wonderful model that i'm standing next to. this gives a sense of what the model will look like when it's erected right next to the washington monument. the cost of this building is a wonderful public private partnership. the building itself will cost $500 million. congress is committed to paying 50% and i'm committed to raising 50% of those costs. one of the joys of this building is that it's got a beautiful bronze skin that will be glistening in the sun what's wonderful about it is that it has on it a certain patterning, and what that is, those are patterns based on african-american slaves' crafts people in charleston and in new orleans who in the 19th century

created beautiful iron work so this, in a way, is a homage to those unnamed people who did so much to sort of build the united states. then what i love about it is that usually when you go into a building on the mall, you're in the building. what we want to do is recognize that you're on the mall so we want to offer people wonderful vistas, because this is going to be right next to the washington monument, in the shadow of the white house. you'll be able to see the lincoln memorial, the jefferson, over at arlington cemetery, so what we've created is a porch. so that the public will be able to come in and go out on a porch, and look at the views of washington. maybe have a cup of coffee, talk about what they have seen in the museum or seen in other smithsonian museums. we want the public to recognize that this building has to do several things. while it's a museum first and foremost we want it to enrich the visitor's experience on the mall, we want them to be able to get views they haven't gotten at other places, we want them to understand that they are in washington, d.c. when they visit

this mall so we'll tell a little bit of that history as well. the real question one would ask is why is there a need for a new museum, especially a museum that looks at african-american history and culture. i would argue first of all the way we're framing this museum is to recognize that on the one hand it's this wonderful opportunity to understand the african-american experience, to help people understand the stories that they thought they know in new ways, but to really understand the deep richness and importance of african-american culture. what makes this important is that we want to use this museum as a lens to explore what it means to be an american, so in essence, this is not simply a museum for african-americans about african-american history. this is an opportunity to create a national museum that allows us all to understand the role that african-american culture has played in shaping all of our lives. one of the challenges when i came back to do this museum is to recognize that i have to

build a collection, that at the smithsonian you could have wonderful technology but you've got to have the iconic treasure, you've got to have the greensboro lunch counter or the wright flyer so. what we're going to do this morning is we're going to go out to our storage area, out in maryland, to give you a sense of just some of the wondrous collections that we've been able to find. right now we're in the storage units of the national museum of african-american history and culture. in essence, this is the heart of the museum because what's behind me and what we'll see today are many of the objects that are going to be the soul of this museum. so this is an opportunity to sort of preview some of the material that the public will see when the museum opens its doors. one of the things that is crucially important as you'll

see is that so much of the museum's time and resources are spent on caring for the collections. that we have amazing experts who know how to preserve and make sure this material will be with us for generations. and we've opened this storage unit and we are coming to this wonderful piece of head gear. this is a boxing head gear that was worn by muhammad ali. as we know, that in many ways muhammad ali started his career as a boxer but then transformed himself into a cultural and political leader. and we all know the story of his gold medal in rome in 1960, his heavyweight championship, but what was clear is that ali became a symbol of unrest in america when he began to claim both his blackness and his desire to sort of campaign

against the war in vietnam. this piece of equipment was crucial to ali's career and for us to have this allows us to interpret muhammad ali from many lenses. this piece is from the fifth street jam in miami where ali trained early in his career. one of the things that is so important is to realize how much goes behind the scenes in making a museum work. and in this case, because in essence we had to start from scratch, not only did we have to build the collection, find all of this material, but then build a system to protect it. build the systems to track it and build the systems to allow us to exhibit it. so it really is this long complicated process that takes

many years to complete. what happens when you are trying to build a museum is the notion of getting these collections, so one of the challenges is the variety of where you should do this. early in my career it was pretty easy that people sort of felt the desire to give to the smithsonian, but then as times changed these things became a commodity, you have planet hollywood and hard rock cafe. suddenly people began to see these as a way to make money so. what we have is a variety of ways to build the collection. we still have people who are great donors, that we court and we talk to, about donating material to the smithsonian. we also get over the tran sum collecting, people call or say

i've got this cool thing, do you want it. sometimes it's cool, sometimes it's a copy. but so we have to be very careful about what happens because often when you create a museum you are so embracive that then 30, 40 years later you've got material that you really don't need so we're trying to be careful when we collect. you also at times go after auction or purchase things that are really rare. what we try to do is limit that, but to do that with things that are really hard to do. it's hard to get sometimes civil warrior material or slavery material, sometimes it's hard to get fine art so we really do try to go out and judiciously acquire things through auctions and purchase. but the goal is to basically have a variety of mechanisms that allow us to build this collection. one of the joys of this process is realizing just what's out there. there are many things that you want, that you hope to find, but you're convinced you're never

going to find it. right here we're looking at two artifacts that i was convinced didn't exist. these are materials that are related to harriet tubman, the great abolitionist and underground railroad conductor. you're looking at a shawl that was given to harriet tubman by queen victoria of england as a way to honor her resiliency and the work that she's done in terms of being a champion of freedom. and what i love is that not only did we get this from a collector, but he gave us this gospel hymnal that harriet tubman owned. what is powerful, when harriet tubman would go south often to alert the slave it was time to go, she would sing various hymnals, swing low sweet chariot, steal away jesus. harriet couldn't read but the fact that she carried this personal hymnal with her for a large part of her life was a very moving and powerful piece. and it seems to me that this museum has to tell what is one of the most painful stories in america which is the story of enslavement. and there are few things as powerful as a shackle.

these are the kind of shackles that were used during the period of enslavement. and what people forget is that slavery is also about control and violence and trying to coerce people to do unpaid labor. what i think we want to do is to be able to interpret slavery both as a system that helped the country economically, and as a system that was shaped by the people who lived it, but also recognizing that the enslavement of people continues to shape the way americans' identities is and the way americans live to this day. and here is a really special artifact, much like the harriet tubman material we couldn't believe. this is a bible that we think was owned by nat turner. nat turner was an enslaved african who led a revolt in 1831, he led what was considered the largest slave revolt, and when nat turner was eventually captured, he had a sword and this bible. and the fact that this was passed on in the families and

eventually donated to us is very powerful artifact that allows us to tell a story that is often left out which is the story of rebellion and desire for freedom at all costs. one of the things that is really interesting about a museum is that on the one hand you tell these grand stories. but on the other hand what you want to do is personalize it. and right here is really a simple document, a piece of paper that is hard to read, but what it is, it's a bill of sale for a young woman named polly who was a 16-year-old woman who was being sold from one person to another. in the 19th century. what i think is so powerful about this is to recognize that

on the one hand this is a legal document. on the other hand this is the story of a people, this is the story of a woman's life, and so for us, to be able to personalize slavery through things like this mean that we're going to be able to help the public not just understand but care. and again, as we've said, some of these are so priceless and the way they have to be handled by experts like michelle here, there is one of the prize objects we have. the story of african-americans and the american revolution is often rarely told. and this is a powder horn that was carved by an enslaved african named prince simbo. he lived in connecticut, he fought in the american revolution, from 1778 to about 1782. what is powerful about this, first of all because he carved

it we know a lot about him. but on the other side of it is this amazing sort of symbol. it is the dove and the mouth of the dove is the word liberty. so the notion of an enslaved african being the person to help define what liberty means in america is really a very important piece for us. this is going to be one of those rare things that people are going to be surprised to see. and keeping with this theme of the sort of military experience, one of the things we know is that african-americans from the revolutionary war really through afghanistan used the military as a way to prove their worth, to prove they are worthy of citizenship. this was never truer than during the civil war. what you see here are two types of civil war soldiers. and as you may know, that by 1863, thousands of

african-americans became soldiers in the union army, so you'll be able to sort of see that they had these images taken, part as a way to document but part as a way to symbolize the pride of making transformation from being enslaved or even being free but being discriminated against, to be able to fight for your freedom. one of the things that is so interesting are the little things you find. so, what we have is an amber type of sergeant quarles tibbs, and what is powerful is that there were also sort of informal i.d. badges that were made during the civil war, and this is his little badge that talks about his name and so the fact that we have an image, we have the badge, again allows us to personalize these stories. and because the story of the african-american experience is a broader story, a story about us all, one of the joys is artifacts like this.

this is a trunk that was carried by an officer of the 55th massachusetts. you remember regiments were segregated but the officers tended to be white. this trunk was owned by george garrison who was the son of the abolitionist william lloyd garrison. he served in the 55th massachusetts which was the companion unit to the more famous 54th. and i think that being able to make sure that we're telling the full richness of the story from variety of perspectives this kind of trunk allows us to do just that. not only is it a historically significant trunk, but it's to use the scholarly term, pretty cool. and so to get a sense of thinking about army life, what you could put in here, you in

essence put in all of who you are, your belongings, your clothing, and this is what you carry with us. so this is a great case that's going to allow us to help people really understand a lot about what life was like during a civil war era. this story of the african-american experience is both a story of resiliency, achievement, but it's also a story of struggle. and one of the hard parts of exploring this history is that often the people who were at the worst tended to be other americans. so that makes it hard to interpret this because americans aren't used to being the bad guys. one of the things that is powerful is objects like this. that convey the sort of strong anti-black sentiment. this is a ku klux klan banner from the 1920s, the four ks, the knights of the ku klux klan. the clan began after the civil war, goes underground and then sort of bursts new as a result of the film the birth of a nation, and the clan becomes not

a southern phenomena but national in the 20s and 30s and this kind of banner is the kind of thing the people would sort of use to celebrate their investment and participation in the ku klux klan. so these are the kind of things that we have to make sure we tell the painful stories as well. and then i think that one of the things that is really interesting to me is to recognize that so much of what shapes a community is work. so, we wanted to make sure that we found things that would give people an understanding of the way black america worked. and one of the most important stories often a story not clearly understood, is the story of the pullman porter.

this is a wonderful hat, in some ways we have become to a point where pullman porters were seen 18 stereotypical way as people who only served, who actually worked on the railroad to make sort of the travel of the elite white community comfortable. but the pullman porters played a more important role. they were in some ways the communicative heart of the african-american community. they began to bring to regions of the country an understanding of what was going on in the south, what was going on in california, and they became one of the earliest black unions, so they were very successful in the early 20th century in unionizing and establishing a pattern that many african-american entities and businesses would follow in the future so. for us, the pullman porter is both a story of work, it's a story of the limits of what people were able to do because they were african-americans, but

it's also a story of how people transcended the limits of their job and created a way to help the entire community. and then in some ways, the whole notion of struggling against racism, battling segregation, is really at the heart of trying to understand this story. these two artifacts that we're about to look at speak volumes about segregation. on the one hand, we have what was something that was ubiquitous throughout the 20th century, colored drinking fountains, things that were sort of ensured that the separation of the races were enforced. and as we know, that segregation was the law of the land throughout part of the 19th century and all of the 20th century. so colored theater, colored hotels, colored drinking fountains were part of the way america lived. and what's fascinating they are hard to find now. what really moves me in addition to things like the colored drinking fountain, is really looking at the depths one went to segregate america.

and one of the things that is so powerful is this lally kemp, a charity hospital in independence, louisiana. what i love about this is that this tells you clearly that race matters. when you look at the schedule of actual hospital services. on monday the colored could go to the gynecologist. but on tuesday that it was whites who could go for pediatrics, internal medicine. on wednesday, whites went to their gynecologist or had the dental services. so the notion that we were so rigidly segregated that hours of the day were determined based on the color of your skin. i think this is one of the most powerful objects we collected. this was an object that is not 100 years old. this is an object that really was sort of used from the sort of mid 1950s until medicare came in which basically then desegregated many of the hospital facilities.

so, what we want people to realize is that segregation, while it has long roots, was not that long ago. one of the things we want to celebrate is that one of the most interesting things i think about american history is the struggle to make america live up to its stated ideals, the notion of people of all races, coming together to say we want to make america a different place. and one of the things we've collected is from a woman named joan mullholland who was an early snick worker. during time in the south one of the things she did was collect these buttons and badges that really speak volumes of the 1960s. you've got buttons that say

freedom now, from the congress of racial equality, or buttons that say support sit-ins, or support the student nonviolent coordinating committee which is a crucially important organization. and what i like about this is that this really tells you about the kind of optimism and hope, there are a lot of buttons of black and white hands together. the notion that we would be able to transcend the kind of discrimination that existed. but also if you look carefully there is a button that is upside-down on this coat which is a white button that says never. this button that says never was really sort of button that many ardent segregationists carried to make clear that never would integration, never would blacks dominate whites and so i think this is a really important piece.

but joan mullholland in addition to being part of snick brought us something i think is one of the most moving things we have, that is something that looks like simply pieces of broken glass, shards of glass. what these are is these are materials that were collected at the funeral of the four black girls who were killed in september of '63 with the birmingham church bombings. and joan mullholland and many of the other workers were there and she collected these shards from stained glass window of the 16th street baptist church and in the street was a shot gun shell. in many ways these shards speak volumes about broken lives, but they speak volumes about the sort of use of violence to control, to battle racial integration. but in some ways, something as simple as this speaks volumes to our audience.

and violence is such a part of the way of understanding this. here is a button. this is a button that is a celebration of the life of martin luther king. these buttons were produced right after king was assassinated in april of 1968. and so in some ways this button gives the way people to be able to both symbolize their commitment to racial change, but as a way to remember the martyred life of martin luther king. in many ways the challenge of the 1960's is the transformation of america and what's the vision for that transformation. is it a vision of an integrated world, is it a vision of nonviolent sit-ins or were there alternative visions? one of the most important visions of the 1960s and 70s was the black panthers.

the black panthers were a group that began in oakland, california, and they really called themselves the black panther party for self defense. created in response to perceived police violence and intimidation, and one of the things that's wonderful is that this poster became an iconic poster that was in the rooms of you know, myriads of high school and college students during the 1960s and early '70s. this is huie p. newton, the leader of the black panther party. what is powerful is that this poster talks a lot about what black -- where black america was in 1968-69. on the one hand there's a homage to africa. you have african zebra rug and african materials, the kind of chair that symbolizes the king chair. but you also have the sword, i mean the rifle and the pike as a way to say that violence will be

met with violence. so, for the black panther party their notion was that they will do what needs to be done in order to force america to change. and so i think being able to have this which really has the sort of wonderful quotation that really does speak about the black panther party's commitment to their community, their desire to demand the police to not violently intimidate the african-american community, plus the notion of the black panther, being an animal that is strong and aggressive and will defend itself really sent the message for many people that a non-violent way of change wasn't enough to change america. when i came back to the smithsonian in 2005, shortly thereafter katrina hit new orleans. and one of the things that i realized is that as new orleans was devastated, often the african-american community bore the brunt of much of that devastation. one of the things that i

realized that was very important for us is to document that. and as we thought about what are the things that were documented i kept seeing the picture of people being rescued, of the helicopter t coast guard, going down and having people jump into these baskets. so, i had a colleague from the museum of american history, david shea going down. i asked him, please pick up a basket for us. so, this basket was one of our earliest acquisitions. and this is a basket actually used to rescue people during katrina. so, what you've seen in many ways is a snapshot of the more than 15,000 objects that this museum has collected. and that these objects really are at the heart what if the smithsonian is, because even if you have the most amazing technology that's possible, it really is the artifact that

really brings the public to the smithsonian. and so for us, the fact that we're able to find these wonderful materials give us the greatest of confidence that we were able to craft a museum on the one hand will tell great stories, will have wonderful artifacts, will be 18 great building, but more importantly we'll be able to create an institution that will allow the public to engage candidly over the issue that has divided us more than anything else, that is race. and so our job is not just to build a museum, our job is to build a structure that within it allows a conversation to occur that makes america better. >> you can watch american artifacts and other american history tv programs at any time by visiting our website. c-span.org/history.

next week, book-tv and american history tv explore the culture of the texas oil industry that got started. go to c-span2 book tv and the challenges of running an independent bookstore. also, author jay lee thompson on the year-long expedition. american history tv at 5:00 p.m. and