(applause) welcome good evening. i am rob fisher, the director of st. john's church. i am thrilled that our friends at the white house historical association asked us to provide space for tonight's conversation. stewart asked if i would share a little bit about the history of this very historic room that you are sitting in tonight and so i will share with you that this church was completed in 1816. the architect was benjamin henri literal. not only did he design this church but he was working on rebuilding the white house after it was destroyed in the war of 1812. in 1818 in 1818, he built what is now the home of the historical association. you see a similar entrance.

it was built as a green cross and was an even four sides. in 1822, they expanded the church building to make room for more seating. we do not know who the architect was who did that expansion and built the bell power -- belltower. tragically, he had already died at that time, in new orleans. there might be some historians in the room. we would love to know belltower is a beautiful addition to the church. it houses a bell forged by paul revere's son. it's says 1822 boston revere. it is not the only that came to

washington is the only one still in place used for its original purpose. this is the only building still being used for the purpose for which it is held, more than 200 years later. we are open most days of the week and welcome anybody. james madison was president in 1816, when st. johns opened. and the church decided to offer him a special pew that would be reserved for his use anytime he

wanted to come to church. that would be the president spew. back then there were actually boxes. you rented your pew box. he was able to use his pew box free of charge. and he received that offer and a decision was made to put the president spew right in the middle of the people, rather than up and front which was the high status pew box. he wanted his pew box to be among other people to worship. that tradition continued and 1842, when the pews that exist now or and saw stalled that you are all sitting in president tyler in 1840 to make sure that the president's pew would be in an exact location where the pew box with the beginning and medicine. beginning with president madison, he worshiped in the space at least once. many have become regulars and some had even become members of

st. john's during their presidencies. one detail that really stirs me and to think about the time during the civil war, when abraham lincoln would walk alone across the park from the white house in the evenings. his regular sunday morning church was new york avenue presbytery and church in that direction a few blocks away. in the evenings he would walk alone across the park and sit in the very last pew on the south side right over there. you can imagine what was on his heart during those evenings as he came for a little bit of space. a little bit of quiet time to reflect. and pray he would always leave just before the end of the service so he could leave undisturbed. it is a prayer of mind that the space will continue to serve as a place where people can come and have reflection, who can

have a little bit of space and grace in the city that moves very quickly. i want to say to you all, that our aim is to be open to all people no matter what background, no matter what denomination or faith tradition. we want to be here for all of our neighbors. a house for all people. i am really excited for the conversation we are about to have tonight. it is important to say, it is good to remember, that in those early years, those people who passed through this space, who lived and spent time in the neighborhood surrounding this building. all of those people, no matter what color of their skin, no matter their stature, no matter their disposition. everyone was affected by the economic and the moral reality

of the institution of slavery. in one historical detail that i want to leave you with, a poignant note. the second director of this church, he was director from 1817 to 1845. his name was reverend william halle. he would have the practice of baptizing african american babies and marion african american couples and its home. and as historians in this room who have been working hard on the essays that have been produced, know very well, we do not have all the records that we would like to be able to tell the story as fully as the story needs to be told of that time. but we have, in our own registers that we have collected upstairs and in the church archives, we have the registers of all the baptisms and all the marriages and and some of them, we see notes, where it says where it took

place, when he would marry african americans, he would do it in his home and his family would be witnesses. on january 11th 1828, reverend halle married emily matthews and william priests. emily was listed in the register as colored and william was listed as slave. just think, the very next wedding listed in the same register took place in the white house. for john quincy adams son. thank you all for being here tonight to have this important conversation that we are privileged to host. i will now welcome forward my good friend stewart mcclintock. the president of the white house historical association. . >> i think you very much. rob to reverend fisher and the

people of st. john's church, it is wonderful to be in your historic home. in this historic neighborhood here tonight for this very very important conversation. i also want to thank the queens who performed for us. they are local washington d.c. group. it is wonderful to have them with us tonight and i hope you enjoyed their music. (applause) to our friends joining us tonight by c-span and on facebook live, we hope you have enjoyed this conversation and that it encourages you along with everyone here to dive deeper into the topic that we will be unpacking for you this evening. i'm here tonight on behalf of the board of directors of the white house historical association. our national council on white house history. many of them are with us tonight. welcoming you all for this wonderful conversation that our historians have been working on for several years.

it was in may of 2016, at a speech at the city college of new york, and later that summer the political convention in philadelphia. first lady michel obama delivered a speech on both occasions that included these words. i wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. in the days that followed, our phone lines, our emails, our internet, our press office, our historians were all inundated from the public press, people wanting to know the story behind those very compelling words. my first call was to doctor lonnie, that will be part of our conversation tonight. lonnie, we need to know more about the story. we know anecdotes, but we need to know names, states,

specific's. it is the peoples house, the white house. but we need to know about the people that built the house. the people that impacted it beyond the president and their first families. he was very generous to introduce his historians at the national museum of african american museum culture. pecan a three-year project delving into this topic. during that time, we had the privilege to host a group called the presidential leadership scholars. this is a program that is a collaboration of the presidential libraries and foundations of clintons, pushes, and president johnson. they bring together these young dynamic early career leaders, and at the program educator house across the park. they went up into the historic slave quarters that night. i think they were intrigued, encouraged, maybe a little bit inspired. they took it they took us to

task. we need to do a better job of telling that story and interpreting that space. so we folded that story at the cater house and the last remaining example of sleeve hoarders in the presidents neighborhood in the story that we are telling tonight. we previously, earlier this week, unveiled our website. emphasis on this topic with a treasure trove of research documents and papers and at white house dot or you can go encouraging friends to look at that as well. this is not the end of what will be doing. this is really the beginning we are raising the curtain on this conversation and we want to encourage through our continued research and programs will be undertaking as well. this -- we were founded in 1961 by first lady jacqueline kennedy, nonprofits, nonpartisan partner for the white house. every year, we provide non taxpayer funding to maintain

the beautiful museum standard of those that you see on the state form in the white house. but also important to mrs. kennedy was an education mission. she challenged us to teach and tell the stories of the white house history going back to 1792 when george washington selected that piece of land across the street and hired a young irish architect to build the white house. we do that through public crow programming such as. tonight books, publication, quarterly magazine, social media, our rep site, podcast, many other ways. we have teacher institutes where we bring teachers from all over the country. we engage students and i actually have some friends of mine here tonight who are students. reverend fishermen shun the presidents pew. he was seated in the presidents pew tonight. seated in that pew our students from washington d.c.. they participated in a podcast with me, and a wonderful

student. i would like for them to stand. (applause) so tonight they are in the presidents pew. one thing we like to think of as educators as we planted the seed and we water the seeds, but we may never see the results of that education. and we hope one, day the students and their peers back here, maybe will be presidents of the united states sitting and the presidents pew. they are great friends of mine and it is great to have them here this evening. we had the privilege of having two wonderful presenters tonight. david is the cofounder and co-executive chairman of the carlyle group. he has been the chairman of the board and held positions with many organizations including the smithsonian institutions

duke university, foreign relations, and many others. he has a heart and passion for patriotic philanthropy and invests in places involved with history, like the white house historical association, our sister institutions supporting history causes, great american monuments like the lincoln memorial in washington, he has helped save. he has been a giver of transformational gifts that allowed us through the center to have programming like this and undertake the research we do. we are grateful for him for that support. if you have the opportunity to watch him on his television show, i know you will enjoy that, as i have. he is recently an author of a book. the american historical

conversations with master historians. you will all receive a copy of the book late tonight. our other presenter is the 14th secretary of the smithsonian institution and the first african-american and first historian to hold this important role in our country. [applause] you know him well as the founding director of the national museum of african american history and culture. he was the first person i called when the initiative came into the radar screen. he is the author of a a fools errand. a culture in the age of bush, obama, and trump. i really encourage you to read

this. it tells a wonderful story of someone who was able to move and mix and make things happen across political lines and beliefs. that is a wonderful thing, in this day and time. his role is the same regardless of who the president and the first lady may be. our role is to support the people in the united states. he is the advisor to many boards, including the committee for preservation in the white house, which we worked with: >> worked with closely. we're honored to have david and lonnie with us tonight. please welcome them to the stage. [applause] >> do you think in

1816, when this was open, that you and i or our ancestors would have been here? we are honored to be here tonight. this is a terrific place to talk about the white house history and slavery. at the african american and culture museum, if i want to get tickets to see something, how do i? >> everyone has been calling me. i have tried to say that i am no longer there. i have been struck by the desire is so great that a few months ago, -- a woman called and said she wanted tickets and i said i do not do that and she said, you have got to give them to me because i was your girlfriend in seventh grade. (laughs) when you are 13, you remember your first crush. i gave her the tickets.

>> so that is the technique to use. it took you how many years to get that from beginning to end? >> i worked on it for 11 years. >> how much money did the federal government give you for that? >> we had one staff, no collections, no money, no idea where the museum would be. the smithsonian had $1 million to get started. i spent that in like two weeks. ultimately, you have got artifacts given by citizens of a country >> ultimately, you have got artifacts given by citizens of the country. how many were given to the museum? >> 40, 000, 70% came from people's basements and attics. we realized that the idea of the culture and history was

still available, we felt the only way we could do it was to get people to share with us stories and histories through the collections. >> you have nat turner's bible. harriet tubman's shawl. the mope -- the most popular is which? >> chuch berry's cherry apple red cadillac that i did not want and did not think was important, which shows you -- >> how many people have been to the museum since it opened? >> 7.3 million. >> what is the average time someone spends going to this museum? >> 4.5 hours to 5.5 hours.

it tells you if you craft stories in a dramatic way, people will spend the time to understand and think about and debate. we are pleased to has become the kind of sites that in some ways almost a pilgrimage site. people feel the need to be a part of it. we are grateful to have the opportunity to work with you to create that museum. >> the taxpayers only put up $200 million. how much did you raise from citizens across the country? >> about 250 million. >> how did it happen that this country had slavery? was it ordained? how did it come about? >> you had two systems created.

spanish colonies in florida and mexico, when they begin to bring africans, and some slave people as early as 1650. in the united states, you have the first african-american coming in 1690. the process of becoming a slave took time. initially, the africans were like indentured servants. within 30 or 40 years, it was clear that africans were then restricted to slavery for life. you realize slavery is both an economic system of labor, later a system of social control, as more and more africans come to this world. i think the most important thing to remember is slavery from the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, was the most dominant institution in the united states, that almost every aspect of the culture, politics, foreign policy, industry, was

all shape by either slave trade slavery, the labor of slaves, or the money invested by slave. when you think on the eve of the civil war, more money was invested in slaves, in the enslaved population, then the business combined. it is so essential to understanding who we are. that is why this is so important. this is not an ancilary story to helping us understand who he wants were -- >> did they work for a few years and then leave or was it clear they were slaves? >> it was clear they were viewed as different. the way we can tell by formal

records, is the 1640's to 1660 that we see the institutions of slavery that made concrete. -- >> a total of 20 million slaves at one point were here. how many were brought over? more in central and south america than the united states? -- states? >> only 13% of the millions of africans taken and brought to the new world, only 13% came to the united states. more came to places like brazil and the caribbean. that 13% became such a large portion of the population that it really began to outweigh initial numbers. >> larger numbers were in brazil because they died more

rapid because of weather and treatments. >> the agriculture was better developed because of sugar and the like. that is where it started. >> the united states brought over about 800, 000, 600,000 africans, who came to the united states. they reproduced and so forth. we have about half a million slaves? a the time of the civil war, 4 million slaves? >> about 4 million enslaved africans and 1.5 freed africans in both the north and the south. >> if you were brought over on a slave ship, what were chances you would survive? >> there was a lot of debate about mortality. many feel that 30 to 50% of those brought on ships perished,

either on the ships or on the way to plantations or mines where they ultimately worked. that middle passage was really something that was hard for people to survive. it really was one of the markers of understanding the impact of slave trade. when the declaration of independence was agreed to on july the 4th 1776 we fought a revolutionary war that went on till 17 royal -- at that time come was there any mention of slavery, that people wanted to mention as a problem, or did they not address it? >> there was a whole discussion around jefferson beginning to identify the treatment like they were enslaved.

there was such a concern that if we begin to explore the question of slavery, you as colonials have to figure a what that means for us. slavery is only the most visible thing but also often tried not to be mentioned. >> obviously people made changes along the way but he wrote the most famous steps, that all men are created equal, but how could he say that when he had slaves throughout his lifetime and was not talking about getting rid of slaves? >> on the one hand, here was jefferson, who defined them a notion of what liberty is and what independence and freedom is.

because he understood what slavery was. and used the power to control other people, he understood what freedom meant. for me, what is so powerful is, how do you unpack that? how'd do you help people understand, at the same time he is seen as a symbol around the world of freedom, he is also a symbol around the world of american culpability, american -- american embracing of slavery, and for us, we are still as a people trying to untangle that and be clear what it means that we are a nation of freedom based on slavery. >> the revolutionary war is over. the treaty of paris is signed. a constitutional convention is held in philadelphia. in that convention, george washington presides over it. is there any mention in the constitution when it is finally revealed, of slavery? >> there are always amazing debates in

the constitution. to many people, that meant, do we county the slave population, so we have the 3/5 amendment where enslaved people are counted as three fifths of it person, and that really speaks to the way enslaved people were viewed, that they were not completely human, were not equal. >> the word slave was not used in the constitution for obvious reasons. they recognized it and banned the importation of slave, but let's move forward. the capital the country initially is new york. george washington becomes the

first president in new york -- and lives in new york but then a law was passed that it would be moved. it was a compromise. they decided to move it further south in philadelphia. george washington is given the right to pick the site and he picks something on the potomac. >> it was a place that already had georgetown here. he already had some tobacco trading. we thought this was a nice spot between the north and south. >> they will build a federal city -- not yet named after him. >> there were plantations, slave people who lived here

before it officially became washington. to build the city of washington than they import labor from overseas and used slave labor? who really built? it >> washington is built by many people. it is built by immigrants that were brought into work, but there is a strong sort of enslaved population that turns the land from swamp to farmland, that begins to identify, cut down the trees, the timber that they used, that quarries the stones so that enslaved labor touches all aspects of what would become washington d.c.. >> so i'm a plantation owner and i have slaves i want to build the city of washington. i would say i would use some of my slaves. what i get paid for? that it slaves get any of that compensation? with its slave labor get typically? >> what you have is, first of

all you have people who use their enslaved population to do the work, and those folks rarely got compensated. then what would happen is many times enslaved people and others were hired out. you would say, i am building a building and i need to have labor. i would like to hire three of your carpenters. three of the people you work with. usually what would happen is that, the person building the structure would pay the plantation owner. sometimes, it was done in a way that we sanctify the enslaved. they would get a small portion of that. it really was most of the revenue went back to the owner. >> so the government is operating out of philadelphia for building the city of washington which became washington d.c., and george washington is supervising. he is picking people to help the the design. he picked somebody to design

the white house, is that right? that was someone from europe who actually was the designer. when they started building the design, was it slave labor that actually did build the white house? >> over 200 enslaved people worked to construct the white house. while there were crafts people from ireland, england, and of course the united states that did a lot of the work, the enslaved people played a crucial role. they did a lot of the quarrying of the stone from virginia and getting the stone up here. they did a lot of the work on getting the lumber, doing some of the initial work that needed to be done. so there is no doubt that you do not have a white house without the enslaved labor. >> when it was finally completed, it took about eight years to build the house. george washington was no longer

president and the president was john adams. he came down and lived here only for a few months before -- he only served one term. did he have any slaves when he lived there servicing the white house? >> adams did not own any sleeve, but there were enslaved people who worked at the white house. so that you begin to have enslaved people working from almost the inception, really threw into the 18 fifties, working and the white house still. >> so he was very careful not to ever owned slaves he. did not believe in slavery, i guess. but he in effect had enslaved people working at the white house. he knew they were enslaved. >> it was labor that was needed. so they were for, adams, there were people who did the laundry. so people who did the work around the exterior, which i care of the horses were enslaved. adams was succeeded by jefferson. jefferson was a big slave owner and he had a longtime

relationship with slaves. did he ever bring sally hemmings to the white house? >> whichever scent did is that he brought some of sally hemmings family to the white house. but jefferson what he did is he brought, he took a portion of his own and sleeved population, but he often used people who are were already here. he wanted to keep people on the plantation. what jefferson realized, like so many, the key to his success was going to not to be able to have to pay for all the labor, but to use and sleeved labor to save money. >> jefferson was succeeded by madison who is also a slave owner. did he bring slaves to the white house? >> nine of the first 12 presidents brought enslaved people, used enslaved labor at the white house. because you are really trying to figure out, what do you need to get a building going, to get a white house going? what do you need for the

entertainment? what they realized is that it is slave labor that would provide for the foundation, for them to craft and create what became the white house. >> one of his aides was a slave named hemmings. he later wrote a book about what it was like to work in the white house. that book and had a lot of credibility. the people believe what slaves wrote in those days? >> i think it is important to realize that the enslaved people often did not have a voice. when they had the opportunity to right or have their stories told, they shared them in a very candid way. it is really one of the first books to help us understand what life was like in the white house. actually, it was interesting because through the lens of someone who was enslaved, it brings a special richness to. it >> many people who were from the north were against slavery, but they did not have any problems going to the white house where there was slave labor. they accepted it as part of life in washington?

>> remember that there is a difference between being opposed to slavery and feeling that african americans are equal. that are people that you can interact with. there were people that were coming from whatever parts of the united states. they were comfortable with african americans as second class citizens, doing the kind of basic work that needed to be done. they may have opposed slavery, but they did not champion equality. >> in the early days, washington d.c. when adams as president, jefferson, madison, monroe it was mostly a white city, but there were some slaves and some free african americans? >> throughout the 19th century, approximately a third of the population of washington d.c. where african american. there were places like georgetown that had a predominantly african american community in the 18th and early

19th century. what you have in washington, is what i love to say is, this neighborhood that we are in was a black neighborhood. it was a neighborhood of an equals, but it was a neighborhood where there were many african americans, many enslaved, some free, and so i think it is important to realize that for many people, african americans, washington became their home, and they did a variety of jobs for the city. >> there were a fair number of fried and african american slaves. did you have to carry papers with you down the street so somebody said you are a slave you should not be doing this or that. how did they handle that? >> washington became the place that the free black population began to grow. partly, some people were often when people gained their freedom in places like virginia and north carolina, they were encouraged to leave, not to

stay. and then they came to one washington d.c.. as you get into the 1810 and 18 twenties, you begin to develop what we call black codes. there were lost past to control the free black community and to make sure that they registered. there were laws in the 18 twenties that said, if you were freeing black and you want to stay in washington. you need to have a white person writing a letter and testing to your character. there were laws that prevented african americans from being out together after a certain time of night. or even reduce the number of african americans that could come together. part of this is out of fear and part of this is out of social control. >> andrew jackson, when he became president he had slaves. did he bring slaves to washington d.c. as well? >> andrew jackson is so interesting on many levels because not only does he bring and sleeved people, but during his administration, through the trail of tears and others, they had this indians from the

southeast, which opens all that land up for agriculture and for southern plantations. so what happens, as a result of jackson's administration, you have thousands of africans who are enslaved in maryland, delaware and north carolina, d.c., they moved south, they are sold south to build a new plantation. that changes the dynamics of the city. >> the white house today faces lafayette square and jackson park and a lot of town homes that were restored there. those homes were built by slaves? >> a lot of homes had slave labor involved. there were crafts people sometimes enslaved, sometimes free, sometimes. not a variety of people -- part of what i love about the white house historical society is doing, is helping us understand more about who did wet. in some ways, this work that is being done really gives

humanity back to these people who were saying they were just enslaved. >> one of the houses that is still on lafayette park and is the cater house which is where the white house historical association has its offices. the cater house was named after a famous naval admiral who died and did not live very long and that. house but that house had sleeve quarters in it. is that right? >> that is one of the houses that we know has a slave area that still exists. probably there were other parts in the house around the area that even changed overtime. but that is one of the special places to be able to actually know and stand in a space that the enslaved lived. >> abraham lincoln is elected president in 1860, and before and those days, the election was in november but you did not take office until march. so it was a long period of time in between, but in that period

of time, a number of southern states began to secede from the union. so lincoln moves to washington. when he came in as president in 1861 and took office, where their big african american populations then in washington d.c.? but it was still a slave area is that right? >> when lincoln was elected in 1860, you have a population of about 12,000 freed african americans and about 6000 enslaved. so you see that although there were large numbers of slaves and enslaved people early, it changes in washington, so by the time lincoln comes, there is a strong slave population. and free black population. where it grows dramatically, is once the war breaks out, and that there are many african american and slaved who self liberate. they leave to come to union lines, they come to washington

and there are literally tens of contraband camps. at arlington cemetery, in florida, up by the old soldiers hole. washington is changing as a result of the civil war and more and more african americans formally and slaved are coming into this area. >> abraham lincoln never owned any slaves. is that correct? i think his father was very anti slavery as an example, when he was brought up very much against slavery. abraham lincoln was not a great abolitionist. is that correct? >> lincoln believed his big issue was they should not expend slavery into the new territories. >> i think he believed as well that slavery was embedded in the constitution. he believed in the constitution. he thought as long as southern states have slavery, that was sanctioned by the founding fathers more or less, it was his original. thinking he obviously changed it a bit. so he is in the white house and

then in the civil war, he is conducting. that does he decide that it would be a good idea to free the slaves to help and the war? why did it take so long for him to come with the emancipation confirmation? >> i think part of it is, as lincoln always said, he wanted to preserve the union. if preserving the union meant protecting slavery, so be it. but ultimately, as the war went on, he realized that there were a couple of things that need to be addressed. first of all, he had to make sure that the confederacy did not get the support of european allies. and so one of the things he wanted to do was to end a moral justification to the war so that you could say to the french, to the english, to the spanish, this is about freeing people, not simply about an internal civil war. the second piece was important was lincoln recognized the sensuality of slaved labor of the enslaved. to the south.

so what he wanted to do was disrupt that by encouraging people to flee areas that were still outside of control of the union army, and that would disrupt the confederate war effort. >> before he was president, he served one term in congress, and one of the bills he introduced was to in effect, free the slaves in the district of columbia, and his complicated way was to free them, and the compensation would be gradual and the slaves would be moved somewhere else. can you explain what colonization was? >> one of the things that happened is the belief that you have got these african americans who are so different, that ultimately, if they were not held in bondage, that there would be a great problem in the united states. jefferson always said that slavery was like having a wolf by the year. you let him go it, would get you or it was a fire in the night that would shock you.

many people felt, if you are going to eliminates labyrinth, you also had to eliminate the enslaved. lincoln was part of a group of people who believed that the key was let us and slavery that let us colonize. send them to latin america, back to africa, so that they can colonize with sort of a christian spirit that they learned in the united states. but that would be a way to solve the problem. there was a concern that if you had all these fried people, what do you do with them? if they strike back? because they were angry about the way they were treated? that was lincoln's notion. he tried several times. >> when he was president of the united states, he still was enamored with it. he had a famous meeting with african american leaders in which he said come to the white house i want to talk to. what did he actually say to them? >> what he said was, i need your support in this idea of colonizing parts of central

america that we would send the newly freed to central america, and many of the african americans -- the notion of going outside the united states by choice was a debate within the african american community. the notion of being told to leave really anchored so many of the abolitionists. so people like frederick douglas who were really offended and attacked lincoln when it became clear that his initial notion was, send these people outside the united states. >> for those who may not be experts on who frederick douglas was and what he did. you would say he was a slave who had escaped and bought his freedom. what was his role in society? >> frederick douglas was someone who escaped slavery from the eastern shore of maryland, ended up first in philadelphia, the new york, then new bedford, and he became someone who became one of the

leaders in the abolitionist movement. a brilliant speaker. he was befriended by abolitionist leaders like william garrison and douglas becomes the voice of black america. he creates newspapers, he debates with lincoln. he really was seen as somebody who would sort of demand that america live up to its state of identity his state of ideals he is not the only person to do that but he was considered the most visible african american in the 19th century. >> he was very articulate and very eloquent and many people were surprised by that because in those days, if you were a slave you are not allowed to learn how to read. it was considered against the law and some states, so is was that against the law and some states? how did he actually learn how to read and was that part of his appeal, that he was very educated and people were so surprised to see such an educated african american at that? time >> douglas --

there were two things that were crucial to enslaved people. one was freedom. that was the most important thing. but the other thing was, that may be the key to freedom was education, being able to read. so douglas was able to learn to read by playing with some of the children he grew up with. overlooking a kind sort of mistress who gave him some lessons. but douglas was of a ratios reader and desired to learn. he really became -- he was a self made man. he really became someone who focused his career on struggling for fairness in this country. >> so he met with lincoln, i think on three occasions in the white house. did he actually have a bond with lincoln and did lincoln actually like meeting with him at some point? >> there are debates around. that i think that initially, lincoln was concerned that for the criticisms criticism of his

colonization standard. he is thinking about the emancipation proclamation. suddenly you are talking to people like frederick douglas around how is this working? and douglas becomes then, if not a champion, more of a supporter of lincoln. there is this amazing see near the end of lincoln's life, where lincoln speaks at his second inaugural and douglas is there, and douglas is trying to get in to see lincoln, and he is being stopped by some of the guards. lincoln sees it, waves at him, waves him in and says, come in friend douglas. i think there was a relationship i'm not sure if it is as close as some people like to make it out. >> the estate gave his walking cane to douglas as a gift correct? >> his widow gave a walking cane to frederick douglas to symbolize what she thought was the bond between them. but also to symbolize that

lincoln with somebody who opened the door and led to the freedom of the enslaved. >> the emancipation proclamation is signed on january one 1863. the war ends and april 1865. the 13th amendment is ratified after lincoln dies. but it is ratified, so slavery is eliminated. when slavery is eliminated, everything in washington is fine. blacks can live next to whites and there is no problem and everything is treated equally, is that right? >> wow, i am not sure that is even today. (laughter) (applause) >> how did it happen? after the 14th amendment gave citizenship and the 15th amendment gave the right to vote how is it that washington became a segregated a city has pretty much anyone in the deep south? >> remember segregation was initially a northern phenomenon. that it is really boston, new

york, philadelphia that passes laws to prevent african americans from going to theaters, that really segregates communities. it would not be surprising that washington became a segregated city immediately after the civil war, because it was segregated even before. >> so even when i was young, in the 19 fifties i lived in baltimore. my parents brought me here to washington. the fact that it was the nation's capital, did not really change anything. washington d.c. was no different than other large segregated cities and at the south, is that right? >> except there were two differences. one is that washington had the federal government. and so there were opportunities for employment that many african americans. had not at the highest level, but they had steady jobs from the get federal government. also, washington d.c. had howard university. howard university is so important. people have undervalued its

impact, because it really made washington the center of black thinking, education, creativity, and that was also part of the appeal of coming to washington d.c.. >> one of the interesting things about washington d.c. is that in the constitution, there was no provision for it to have any electoral votes and therefore people who lived in the district, large numbers of them were african american, did not have any right to vote for president, or at least members of congress i should say. why was that the case and why did people not say that people who lived in the district should have some voting representation of congress? >> now you are asking me to do my politics. i think that in some ways, there is this debate about what a federal sector is. are you a citizen there what are your rights? i think that the challenge in washington is that, it really is a place where you can call it the last colony.

it is really a place -- where dog (applause) and i think it is important to really grapple with the fact where you've got 600,000 people or more, many of whom are a voting age who really have limited rights that is not the same as people around the country. >> in addition to not being able to vote for members of congress the district was run an effect run by the government. is that rank? >> that is right. i think that really home rule is the 1970s creation. >> let us go back to finish the story because we are almost done. the story of race in washington that we have compressed a couple hundred years and 45. minutes >> we missed a few insurrections and the like. >> after reconstruction, because lincoln is assassinated

reconstruction does not go as well as people thought it would've gone. and you jackson johnson is not exactly the same person as abraham lincoln. reconstruction led to jim crow laws the ku klux klan, lynchings throughout the south and washington d.c. did not do that much about the federal government. it was largely controlled by southern members who are not favorable to word african americans. not until the civil rights revolution in the 1960s, did washington get more interested in trying to change things. is that right? is that when it really came out, in the late fifties and sixties when the revolution came along that government officials said we had to do something to change the laws in this country? >> what you have, washington d.c. again, because of howard university, was really at the forefront of demanding fairness in the 19 twenties, thirties and forties, so it really wasn't that they waited until the 1960s, but the pressure on the federal government and the

leadership that the civil rights movement did, the visibility it received, utilizing the media and television, put pressure on the federal government to. change >> in august of 1963, the famous march in washington. the federal government at the time did not want. it president kennedy thought it would lead to violence. but it actually went forward and turned out not to be violent at all. what people were so frayed of -- schools were closed, stores were closed. martin luther king was the last speaker that they. he was the last speaker because? >> well in some ways he was considered the leader of the community and they wanted to give him the best spot. >> i thought they were actually were afraid that he was so particulate that he if he spoke first, the others would not look as. good >> john lewis said that. >> but that's not true. okay. so he spoken gave his famous speech. in the speech, the i have a dream speech, was that something that was written out for him the night before? was it a speech writer who had

given him that text. where did that speech come from and the text he had, he kind of departed from it. why did he do? that >> he had said portions of that speech and other places around the country, the story is, as he is giving his speech, jackson the great gospel singer who was sort of someone that king admired, yield back at him saying, talk about the dream, say the dream! so the argument is he changed that to the respond. that is a great story. it is not true, but it is a great. story (laughter) so he already had -- he knew he was going to do his, i have a dream. >> that was a speech he had given before the i had a dream part and did it from memory. but many whites who saw it, they were mesmerized and had never seen him speak that way. many blacks were mesmerized because they had never actually heard him speak that way

either. but some people had never heard that speech before. after the speeches over his united to the white house? >> after the speech is over, what happens is, the kennedys are moved by what they have heard and what they have experienced. i think they began to realize that if they were going to grapple with civil rights issues, one of the people they needed to deal with is martin luther king. he becomes a person the kennedys initially go to and there is a wonderful story of, during the election of 1960, doctor king is resting and there was a notion of who is going to help him. was it someone from the nixon administration or they can and he's, and the kennedys actually sent people down to protect martin luther king and help them get out of jail. some people argue that really was what helped many african americans suddenly believe that somebody from massachusetts was an accident they did not understand. could really champion your

cause. >> president kennedy is assassinated in 1963 a few months before the march in washington. lyndon johnson a southerner, a man who was his closest friends in the senate a segregationist to become president. would anybody have predicted he would lead the effort and why did he do that given his background, his knowledge that this will probably hurt the democratic party in the south? on the >> on the one hand you have to remember that when lyndon johnson was a teacher in texas, he was very involved with trying to prove conditions for the latino community. so there is a part of johnson that was not just a calculated political move. i think he really felt that fairness was essential. that yes, he knew that it might hurt the democratic party from the white south, but he thought it would ensure that african americans would also rally around the party.

i think that it is so powerful about lyndon johnson is that he has the political sophistication, the connections to be able to go to someone to the southerners and say, i understand who you are. we have got to change. >> okay. so civil rights activists passed the housing act is eventually passed as well. but lyndon johnson is probably the most important person for those acts that pass. is that right? he is the indispensable person. >> i think that he is a combination of lyndon johnson's political acumen and the pressures that are put on by the civil rights movement. i think that as people begin to see birmingham and selma, as they begin to see the violence that african americans and others endured, there is the sense that the country has to change, and johnson sort of rights that wave. >> so somebody is watching or

somebody is here today, i'm really interested in what you have to say. what books can i read that might give me more of a flavor of what washington went through in the civil rights era, what slavery was in this country and how it was dealt with eventually by the constitutional amendments? what would you recommend would be a good book for people to read? >> the civil rights revolution. one of which one the pulitzer prize. >> i think one of the best books to understand race in the 19th century it's david lights biography of frederick douglas. >> it also won the pull it surprise. another book which has not yet when the pulitzer prize, which is your. book (applause) i highly recommend that book, and that is available on amazon and

anywhere else anybody might want to buy it at the smithsonian. >> i would never champion my own book, but it is on amazon and it is also an audiobook. (laughter) (applause). so lonnie, before you wrap up you have given your professional career to causes related to civil rights and slavery, and knowledge of slavery and african history. any regrets that you did not go into private equity or something more noble than what you have done? and how did you actually come to this career as opposed to something more important light hedged funds, private equity, or tech start-ups. >> every time i need to put a new roof on the house, i wonder about that question. i am lucky. i grew up in a family that valued education, and for me, i remember growing up and that was very few i'm african

americans and there were people that treated me horribly, and other people that treated me fairly. i could not understand why. i remember thinking, talking to my parents that maybe if you read history, you will understand a little bit about these interactions, so ultimately, history became first, a way for me to understand myself. then it became a way for me to think, here is an amazing tool that can help a country be made better. here is something that, if people understood more about their past, their expectations, their hopes, it could change the country for the better. >> you told the story before. i will briefly tell it again. when you were younger, your father would take you and your brother and your mother -- you would drive to the south, and you would not stop at certain places, but ultimately you were taken to the smithsonian. why was that? >> what happened was, during the mid sixties, it was the era,

centennial, civil war, i was faye fascinated by. it and when easter, we drove from my home in new jersey to visit my mother's family. i suddenly saw all these museums with pews bergen richmond. i would say to my dad, can we stop at the museum of the confederacy? >>. he never stopped. i thought on my way back, i told him 20 more miles to the museum. and he kept going. normally, he would drive straight to new jersey. and step, he pulled into washington and he pulled into the smithsonian in front of the museum the, museum of american history today, and he said, here is the place you can learn about your past, your country, and not be concerned about the color of your skin. so for me, the smithsonian has always been a place of fairness, a place of possibility, a place

where young kid could not learn stories in some places, but the smithsonian always gave that opportunity. so i feel very humbled to be able to be part of the smithsonian. (applause) i was the cochairman of the search committee that selected unanimously and one of the greatest thing about lonnie having been selected was that when he was officially inaugurated, his mother was there. what could be better than having your mother come to see you? did you think -- >> it was the first time my mother said to me, i guess a history degree was okay. >> i want to thank you for what you have done for our country, for the smithsonian, and tonight. thank. you (applause)

thank you very much. i just want to know, could i get a head fund? >> thank you very much to doctor lonnie bunch for this conversation. in addition to the books it at the recommended, at like to invite everyone to our website where there is a treasure trove of the history of enslaved persons at the cater house, those enslaved in lafayette park as we call it today who built the white house, and those enslaved are early american president and the white house, thank you all for being here, thank you for the support of our historic mission.