lectures in history on c-span3, every saturday on american history tv. it is available as a podcast. find it where you listen to podcasts. >>, on american history tv, a conversation between librarian of congress, carl hayden and lonnie bunch about how cultural institutions can come to the country's aid during difficult times. the library of congress provided this video. carla: hello. welcome to a very special edition of national book festival presents. as many of you know and have experienced, this week, our country is facing many many challenges. struggle forg human rights, civil rights and

freedom dates back to our founding. cultural institutions like libraries and museums are offering historical context but re-examining and continuing to how we present history and information to our publics and making sure we are part of a solution on the road and not part of the problem. so i am honored tonight and they to be joined by secretary of the smithsonian institution, dr. lonnie bunch. he is also and was the founding director of the national museum of african american history and myture and, as a librarian, first purchase, very recently was his new book, a fools

errand, creating the national museum of african-american history and culture in the age of bush, obama, and trump. we appreciate you for being with we have a lot of things we would like to cover. free to ask me a peoplestions, but i know have been very interested in your perspective on what is going on and when we planned this, we had the health crisis that was going on. since that time, another crisis. you released a statement --

why did you think it was important for the public at this time to hear from cultural leaders like yourself. i -- lonnie: i would argue that places like the smithsonian are the glue that holds the culture together. i felt it was important to use that trust to help people find ways to understand this moment, to find some optimism, may be some hope, but at the very least, challenge them to say this is a moment where we can't say we had a million of these in the past and this too shall pass. rather, i was hoping to say this tippinge to have a point in america where we can

come together as a country and address what has always been the great chasm -- race and institutional racism. you said always been. i've heard you talk about the need to not erase history, but to embrace it and look at it understand what is going on. just like youk do, the past is such a valuable tool. on the one hand, people say this is a unique moment. unique characteristic but not a unique moment. someone goes to the sense of loss of enslavement or one looks at the lynchings that went on in the 20th century or destroyed the black town in tulsa, oklahoma, what you see is a constant struggle between democracy and fairness and

discrimination and it -- and violence to enforce that. this is part of a long history and you and i could name so many names of bodies of people who are not here because they ran afoul of the criminal justice system and racism in this country. what i want people to understand is this is a moment where you are seeing things a little different. you are seeing not only a multiracial group of people protesting to help people understand this is not a black problem, it is an american problem. then, you are seeing, at least for me, the first time seeing police chief's, police officers, saying wait a minute, that was wrong. tipping pointd of where people come together and should givee past you some hope. if people could work together to find the naacp or end slavery,

then we can work together to address this as well. so i find hope in history, not only optimism, but i find hope in history. you must feel the same way given what you are doing with the library of congress. from: the hope comes seeing that positive things did come out of very negative situations, when you think about 1919 and will was going on there and why things were happening. that is the hope. i think that in some ways, one of the strengths of looking back in history is to realize in many places where the country became fair, many places where the country began to live up to its rated ideals was

because of the african-american experience. the end of slavery helped redefine and expand our notions of citizenship. communityee is the that believed in america that often did not believe in it. draw fromth now to the strength of the past and recognize we can struggle together and make changes, but recognize that this is not a sprint, it is a marathon. youa: in your book, mentioned the concept of african american history being american were reallyhow you able to weave that into discussions about what that museum should be. it was reallyght important. when people ask if i should come back and run the museum, i thought we have 50 years of

scholarship from franklin, two boys and all of these wonderful young noose scholars. i realized african-american history was too important to just be in the hands of the african american unity. it had lessons for all americans and it profoundly shaped everything who we are. if you look at every residential election, at some point, race was involved. going back to the very beginning. what i wanted to do was help people realize that understanding african-american history is the best way you can understand america and understand yourself. i didn't want people to think this was someone else's story. this is aou to see quintessential american story and they don't understand themselves without understanding that story. that concept see materializing now and where we are at this point and seeing the diversity? lonnie: i think that's right.

that's what i'm hoping. when you see civil rights marches and you see an integrated group, but it is overwhelmingly african-american. here, you are seeing a more blended group and that gives me hope that people are crossing racial lines to begin to recognize this is a time we need to address this because enough is enough. thinkot naive enough to the marches going to change things, but my hope is this begins to create a boil of heat that begins to touch everybody from political leaders of all parts of the country, that corporate communities think what they can do, but really, people like you leading major institutions can help us think how do these institutions help a country at a time when it is really in the greatest need?

carla: what has been inspiring for me is the fact that so many of the people that are part of this now our younger. realizing, oh my goodness, looking back, when you think about john lewis who was only 21 when he put on that backpack and marched across that bridge and now, they are realizing they can have a role and just the march of history. i want to ask you about the impact of the image, being able to see things now. and theary of congress first to for just the known photographs of harriet tubman and it was used in the film, and it gave people a different perspective about her longse they saw her not

after she had done all the things we had heard in history. when you see the older pictures, -- when you see that picture, and frederick douglass, the most photographed person. and then back to john lewis and the images america saw of the violent and the police. can you talk about that role of seeing things? lonnie: in some ways, the great strength is the marriage of the written word, good scholarship, good books and whether it's a photograph or artifact. what that does is it immediately makes it accessible to people. you see an image and it is transformative. when we went today harriet tubman image, that is transformative. i normally see images of her as this older woman bent over. it's hard to imagine harriet

tubman, moses leading people to freedom. then you saw that picture and there's a look in her eye. carla: it was style. is whatfor me, imagery helps history come alive to me. i first got interested in history looking at old photographs as a little kid, wondering what where their lives like? where they happy? where they treated fairly? for me, photographs and the visual literacy we can help america have is so important because it told the amazing scholarship of the written word. i've always thought if i ever have one of those formal want ats painted, i photograph in the other. carla: i remembered those same types of experiences, looking at old photographs, family photographs and one that has

been interesting and i don't know if you have had this experience recently of older generations telling you about things that relate to what is happening now. one of the first photographs, i remember being horrified about seeing my mother's other in a casket. it's a big funeral and as a he's awe thought -- cousin now and he's a photographer and that was one of his first memories. but it brought back the reason why so many people were in funeralrkansas at that is because he was shot by the -- in 1941 -- of a grocery store who shot him attractive tos the shop owners daughter. lonnie: yes.

carla: the same thing. they claimed he committed suicide and he didn't. and for years, that has been there and watching the events now, my mother, she's 88, talked -- finallyce and it you could get that and you have had that experience, i know, looking back, having older people talk about it. lonnie: it is simply amazing. my mom is 92, so you hear her suddenly look at an image and how all talk about relative of hers was run out of woodland, north carolina. do that but what it also is is something that moves me about working with you, and it is ok to say how much our personal experiences shape us.

i know you have had experiences around issues of race and gender that have inspired you, shaped you, angered you, move you. so i would be curious, what are the things in your own life that have shaped you to where you are today? see, i'm inou can just one room of my house and every room, except the restroom has reading material because i'm a child of books. of the earliest experiences and i brought it here, seeing myself for the first time in a ,ook, something i love so much but i never saw a person that looked like me and that was something, but also as a person , coming from the tradition of denying people of color the right to read --

frederick douglass talks about that so eloquently. once you learn to read, you will be forever free. that has resonated with me -- the power. there's a reason they did not want slaves to read. you had toreason limit literacy. the ability to imagine a world yet discovered is part of whatever comes out of rating. as you are trying to control people, the one thing you don't want to do is imagine possibilities. fascinatedu, i was by reading as a kid, partly because i grew up in a neighborhood where until high school, there were no other black kids in the school. went me and my brother went to the school by ourselves. it was a town in north jersey and i remember trying to figure out why some people treated me fairly and some people didn't

and reading became my way to do this. something happened the other day -- somebody i went to high school with sent me a story he had written about what had happened with us that at our high school graduation -- he was white and i'm black and at our high school graduation, we went to a party and when the mother of the daughter came out, she kicked me out of the party. black people shouldn't be at the party. i had forgotten about it and he talked about how that turned him to think about fairness and social justice. growing up in that town, i think more than anything else, it secured my interest in learning about anything else and stimulated my interest to fight for fairness. yourself saying anddo i do work that helps sure everybody gets the opportunities we had.

it's interesting. we were raised, both of us were taught going to graduate school to be objective and step back. that is the personal that gives us the fire to move toward. that: and in institutions have been known to present information, to present history. do you mind if i read another part of your book because this is when my favorites. one can tell a great deal about a country by what it remembers. the walls of its museums and what monuments share privileges and placement in parks and central traffic intersections -- and that part is something i

think we both work on. right: telling the story, ? helping people remember. when we look at things like confederate monuments and how people celebrate that as southern heritage, i don't have any problem if you do that, if you recognize that one that symbolizes traders going against what was the union and in essence, when you look at confederate monuments, they are less about the confederacy and more about how do you preserve segregation and late 19th and early 20th century? history is an opportunity to write some wrongs, make some history more clear, because i think the other thing i learned have if is that people you give them the right opportunities to learn and educate, people have the capacity to deal with difficult issues.

is part of the challenge of our institutions, hand,is on the one recognize these are old institutions shaped by a lot of traditions, but they have a responsibility to help a country be made better, to help people find truth, help people remember come help people deal with occult issues. one of the things i love about what you do at the library of congress is part of what you are doing is helping people embrace ambiguity, not just look for simple answers to complex questions, but look at the literature and recognize it's all about subtlety and nuance and what a great country we would be if we understood subtlety, nuance and ambiguity. carla: and what better person to exemplify that then rosa parks? we joined together, the smithsonian loaned one of her

dresses -- she was a seamstress. and then we had the photos of her in that dress. in her own hand. quiete she was not this little lady with the purse, she was sick and tired and to be able to present that. the power ofshows what we can do. you take the story of rosa parks and the prevailing notion was she was tired and sat down and didn't get up. but look at her life, being active fighting against sexual beingce against women, involved in the naacp. suddenly, you see a story that is much richer and a story of someone who is much braver than you give her credit for. so i love that we were able to do that together. >> -- carla: that's where i'm

seeing more of an opportunity to have those partnerships. the polaroid years later where she is doing a yoga pose. she had health problems because of the hardships she suffered and just to show people in all of their glory and all of their doubt, these great people we look up to where people. you have done that in so many ways. in your new role -- it's not new, actually. you are coming back home to the smithsonian. lonnie: right. carla: how do you see that shaping up? i think building the african-american museum is really was -- it really was about giving a gift to america.

a gift of understanding itself better through the african-american lens. i'm so proud of all the people who worked to make that a reality. those who worked in the place and shared their scholarship and those who share their collections. secretary was where i realized at that stage in my career, there was nothing i needed. i'm more visible than any historian should be. at this was an opportunity to thank the smithsonian forgiving me not just a career, but a calling. i've always been struck by something that happened in my family if you don't mind another family story. carla: i think it is important. lonnie: during the 1970's, it was the centennial and the civil war. i was really excited about the civil war, reading everything i could. we were going from my home in new jersey to visit my family's

home in north carolina. as we got into st. petersburg, i saw signs for museums and civil war battlefields and i said to my dad, can we stop, this is great. he had an excuse -- i have to go 20 miles to get gas. on the way back, we go right past. but instead of driving straight to new jersey, he pulled in front of the smithsonian and he where yous a place can understand yourself, your path, your history in a way that is fair, but as a way we will not be judged for the color of your skin. i never forgot what that smithsonian meant -- a place of possibility for a 10-year-old kid. being secretary was my way to thank the smithsonian forgiving me a place to believe. to believe in the past, to believe in the future. why i want to make the

smithsonian a place that matters to people, not just in traditional ways but ways that helps them live their lives. carla: that resonates so much with me in terms of the position i'm in now as librarian of congress. get taught librarians to out there, information is power, --lic libraries in baltimore putting up those libraries, all of that. to be in the largest library in the world that has treasures that toopening up everyone to scholars for young to open up everyone this wonderful library is a privilege and i also see it as part of the joy i had when i went in there and saw bright april. what if we make this all available? i know we have to wrap up and i wish we could keep going. and we will, but i wonder what

you think from your perspective as a historian, what do you think will be remembered of 2020? there's so -- the pandemic -- lonnie: to have a dual pandemic, a -- of violence and racism, that's going to shape the way people are thinking about it. i think people will run for the protests. murder ofremember the george floyd. will also seeou is people remembering that they can find hope by coming together , hopefully by encouraging political leadership and leadership at the local levels to effect change. i think what you will see when people look back is a sense of either it's going to be a sense of possibility and hope or a sense of failed expectations,

that this was another moment that was exercised over, people wrote books about, but it did not transform. and i don't think we know yet which way it's going to go. is i think what i learned working with people like you who recognize the library of congress, the smithsonian has to be as much about today and tomorrow as it is about yesterday. is the power of the institution we are in. carla: that is also the challenge, when you think about what this virtual world, would you have your curators thinking about collecting from this time? lonnie: right? it's like you did in baltimore. you are going to have to collect social media. what you do is collect the

videos people made of different demonstrations. i think what needs to happen at this moment is almost like wpa and the slave narratives. it's an interesting time. how are there ways virtually we can capture the story so they will be available for generations down the road? that, we have 836 thousand miles of shelving in manuscript and all of this, but you are so right. you are talking about a digital future. what we are doing now. how will we make sure people 30, 40, 50 years from now that want to know more about what is happening in this time? when you think about what has touched you the most about the protests -- i mentioned just seeing the young people is inspiring as someone who is

maturing. what are the things that have been touching you? there are things that are optimistic and negative. candidly, seeing another black man die made me realize how many black people had their last breath taken by a rope, a bullet, or a knee. i realize on the one hand, i am fortunate. but on the other hand, as a black male, you never know when your luck runs out. you never know when you turn left instead of write what you run into. this came much more personal than i might have thought. it made me worry about my grandsons future. but the positive is the same thing you took away -- the same to saycross these lines black lives matter. to say this is not something that is business as usual.

it inspires me. 60'st during the when there were all these marches, you had things like the student nonviolent coordinating committee to make sure they had an impact for their strategic vision. that's what's missing to me right now. i am unbelievably hopeful watching people say, like langston hughes said, let america be america, and we will be on the streets to help. that happen. >> and we will be baking sure we preserve it and capture it, and make it available so that if, and hopefully the future will be brighter. i have to end on a personal one for me. thentioned my mom, and case, she said maybe we could finally get a headstone for jimmy.

because her mother never got to do that. she died of a heart break. maybe we can go and do that. i said ok, that's good. >> that gave me chills. >> that's what she said, may be justice for jimmy. i want to thank you so much. time, this is a trying but for the people who have joined us, we both have websites . loc. for the library of congress. and there is so many. the smithsonian has even started a special portal talking about race. >> the american history museum has this portal, the museum of african-american history. here are things that talk about race, scholars and experts you can talk to. in some ways, like you, we want

both of these institutions to be a value, to be relevant, to fulfill their mission of collecting and remembering, but to give people tools to live their lives. i think that's what we both want to >> do. i couldn't have a better partner. thank you. >> thank everyone and take care. >> you're watching american history to be, all weekend, every weekend on c-span three. >> on lectures in history, university of pittsburgh process redikerofessor marcus teaches a class about the electric slave trade. he explored the portuguese and spanish origins of the trade soon after the 1492. enormous, generations of wealth. they also discuss how traders required or captured trades on the west african coast and described the horrible conditions on slave ships for

captives during the middle passage. it was recorded in 2010 inside the university of pittsburgh's historic cathedral of learning building. >> greetings. good morning. our subject for today is the atlantic slave trade. the first thing i want to say about it is we have a big subject. a tremendously important subject, and truly a difficult subject to deal with today. important -- it's important lies in the relationship to the transformation of the world in the early modern era. by that, i mean three things. first, the origins and the rise of capitalism around the atlantic, beginning in the late 16th