next, smithsonian secretary institution lonnie bunch and secretary lonnie philanthropist david rubenstein bunch and philanthropist david rubenstein discuss the central discuss the central role of role of slavery and slavery in antebellum antebellum washington washington, d.c.. the d.c. white house historical

the white house association hosted historical association hosted this event and this event at historic st. johns historic st. johns church across from the church across from the white house in lafayette square white house and lafayette in square and recognition of their research recognition of their initiative, slavery research initiative, slavery in the presidents neighborhood. as we begin tonight, let's welcomed reverend rob fischer. >> welcome, good evening. my name is rob fischer. i am the rector of st. john's church. i am thrilled that i was asked to provide space for tonight's conversation. stewart asked if i would share a bit about the history of this historic room you are sitting in tonight. so i will share with you that the church was completed in 1816. the architect was benjamin

henri, and not only did he designed this church. he was working on rebuilding the white house after it was destroyed by the british in the war of 1812. and in 1818, he built the decade or house which is now the home of the white house historical association. if you go inside the dictator house. you will see a similar entrance like a miniature of the dome that we have in our church space. the original church was built as a greek cross with an even four sides. in 1822, they expanded the church building to make room for more seeding. we don't know who the architect was who did that expansion and who built the bell tower. tragically, electrode had already died at that time in new orleans. i imagine there might be historians in the room. if anyone's interested in helping us solve the mystery, we would love to know. the bell tower is a beautiful

addition to the church. inside the bell tower, it houses a bell that was forged by paul reveres son, joseph revere. stamped on it, it says 1822, boston review. it's not the only bell that came to washington. but it's the only one that is still in its place and being used for its original purpose. it's interesting to think about this building. this is the only building on lafayette square that goes back to the air that it goes back to that's still being used for the purpose for which it was built, more than 200 years later. i am very happy to say that we are open most days of the weekend we welcome anybody who likes to come into spend time and be in this gracious space. i also feel compelled to mention that it usually looks a bit different than it does tonight. stewart was telling me it will be practice for a new televangelist ministry.

i do not intend to develop that. james madison was president in 1816 wayne st. john's opened. 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 pew. back then, there were actually boxes and you rented your pew box. he was able to use his box free of charge, and he received that offer, and a decision was made to put the president putin right in the middle of the people, rather than up in front, which was the high status pew box. he wanted his to be just above the other people here for prayer and worship. that tradition continued in 1842, when the pews that exist now were installed that you are sitting in. in 1842, president tyler

personally made sure that the president pew would been -- beginning with madison. and it's a fact that every president, beginning with madison, has worshiped in this space at least once. many have become regulars and some have even become members of st. johns during their presidencies. >> a detail that stirs me is 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 the new york avenue presbyterian church. he would walk across the park and sit in the very last pew on the south side. you can imagine what was on his heart during those evenings, has he came for a little bit of

space, a bit of quiet time to reflect and to pray. he would always leave before the end of the service so he could leave undisturbed. it is a prayer of mind that this space will continue to serve as a place where people can come and have reflection, can have a little bit of space and grace in a city that moves very quickly. and 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, and it's important to say and good to remember that in those early years, those people who passed through the space, who lived

and spent time in the neighborhoods 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. one historical detail that i want to leave you with, a poignant note, the second director of this church, rector from 1817 to 1845, reverend william hawley, he would have the practice of baptizing african american babies and marrying african american couples in his home. as historians in the room can tell you, we don't have all the records that we would like to be able to tell the story as fully as it needs to be told of

that time. but we have, in our own registers that we have collected upstairs, the registers of all the baptisms and marriages and in some of, them we see the notes. when he would marry african americans, he would usually do it at home and his family would be the witnesses. on january 11, 1828, the reverend married emily matthews and william prints. emily was listed in the register as colored and william was listed as slave. just think, the very next wedding listed in the very same register took place in the white house for john quincy adams sun. 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 of the white house historic association. [applause] [applause] thank you very much, rob. two reverend fisher and the people of st. john's church, it's wonderful to be in your historic home, in this historic neighborhood here tonight, for this very, very important conversation. i also want to think the string queens who performed as we were coming in. they are a local washington, d.c. group and it's wonderful to have them with us tonight. i hope you enjoyed their music. [applause] [applause] to our friends joining us tonight by c-span and on facebook live, welcome. we hope you enjoy this conversation. i encourage you along with everyone here to dive deeper

into the topic we will be unpacking this evening. i am here tonight on behalf of the board of directors at the white house historic association, our national council on white house history. many of them

inundated from the public, the press, people wanting to know the story behind those very compelling words. my first call was to doctor lonnie bunch, who will be part of our conversation tonight. i said, lonnie, we need to know more about this story. we know anecdotes, but we need to know names, we need to know dates, we need to know specifics. it is the people's house, the white house, but we need to know about the people who built the house and the people who impacted it beyond the president and the first families. he was very generous to introduce his historians at the national museum of african american history and culture to our historians. this began a three-year project delving into this topic. during that time, we had the privilege to host the cater house, a group called the presidential leadership scholars. this is a program that is a collaboration of the presidential libraries and foundations of president clinton, both bushes and

president johnson. they bring together these young, dynamic early career leaders. they were at a program at decatur house across the park. they went to the historic slave quarters that night and i think they were intrigued, encouraged, maybe a little inspired, but they took us to task that we needed to do a better job of telling that story and interpreting that space. so we folded that story of decatur house and the last remaining example of slave quarters in the presidents neighborhood into this story that we are telling tonight. we previously, this week, earlier this week, unveiled our website with an emphasis on this topic with a treasure trove of research documents and research papers. at white house history dot or, you can find that and then encourage your friends to do so as well. this is not the end of what we will be doing. this is really the beginning. we are raising the curtain on this conversation and we want

to encourage it through our continued research and ongoing program that we will be undertaking as well. this fits with our mission. we were founded in 1961 by first lady jacqueline kennedy to be the nonprofit, nonpartisan partner to the white house. every year, we provide non taxpayer funding to maintain the beautiful museum standard of the state rooms that you see on the state floor of the white house. also important to mrs. kennedy was an education mission. she challenged us to teach and tell the stories of the white house and its history going back to 1792 when george washington selected that piece of land across the street and hired the young irish architect james hoping to build the white house. we do that through public programming such as tonight, our books, publications, quarterly magazine, our robust website, social media, a podcast, and many other ways. we have teacher institutes where we bring teachers from all over the country. we engage students.

i actually have some friends of mine here tonight who are students. reverend fisher, mentioned the president putin. seated in the presidents pew tonight are students from calvin coolidge high school in washington d.c. they participated in a podcast with me. they are wonderful students. i would like for them to stand if they are here. are they here? there we are. [applause] >> so tonight they are in the presidents pew. one thing we like to think of as educators is that we plant the seed, we water the seed, but we may never see the results of that education. and we hoped one day that these students and their peers are back here maybe as president of the united states sitting in the presidents pew. they are great friends of mine and it's great to have him here this evening. we have the privilege of having to wonderful presenters tonight.

david rubenstein is the cofounder and co-executive chairman of the carlile group. he has been the chairman of the board and held senior governance positions with many organizations that you are right familiar with including the smithsonian institution, the john f. kennedy memorial forming arts center -- performing arts center, which is the living memorial for president kennedy, the harvard corporation, duke university, council a foreign relations as well as many others. he has a heart and passion for patriotic philanthropy, and he invests in places that are involved with history like the white house historical association, our sister institutions that are supporting history causes. great american monuments like the lincoln memorial and washington monument that he has helped save. he has been a giver of transformational gifts that allow us, through the david and rubenstein center for national history to have programming like this and undertake the research that we do. we are very grateful to him for

that support. if you've had the opportunity to watch him on his television show on the bloomberg network, peer to peer conversations with david rubenstein, i know you will enjoy that as i have. he is the -- house recently and author of a book, the american story, conversations with master historians. and through his generosity, you will all be receiving a copy of this book as you leave tonight. [applause] >> our other presenter tonight is doctor lonnie bunch. he was the 14th secretary of the smithsonian institution. he's the first african american and the first historian to hold this very important role in our country. he too ... [applause] >> you know him well as the founding director of the national museum of african american history and culture. as i mentioned earlier, he was

the very first person i called when this initiative came onto our radar screen. he too is the author of a new book. a fools errand, creating the national museum of african american history and culture in the age of bush, obama and trump. i really encourage you to read this because it tells the wonderful story of someone who was able to move and makes and make things happen across political lines. and beliefs. that is a wonderful thing in this day and time. his role, as is our role at the white house restoring association, is the same regardless of who the president and first lady may be. our role is to support the people of the united states and the resources they have here in washington. the smithsonian institution and the historic white house. he is the advisor too many boards including the committee for the preservation of the white house, which we work with very closely in collaboratively. we are very thrilled and honored to have both david rubenstein and lonnie bunch with us tonight.

please join me in welcoming them -- welcoming them to the stage. [applause] >> so, lonnie, do you think in 1816 when this was opened for james madison that you and i or our ancestors would have been here? >> the back door. >> so we are very honored to be here tonight. this is a historic place and a terrific place to talk about the white house history and slavery related to it. before i dig into that though, at the african american history and culture museum, if i want to get tickets to go and see something, how do i get tickets to go? because everybody wants to go see this museum. >> well, everyone has been calling me and i've tried to say that i'm no longer there. but what's i've been struck by is the desire is so great that

a few months ago a woman called and said that she wanted tickets. i said i don't do that. she said, well you've got to give them to me because i was a girlfriend in seventh grade. now i need to be honest, when you were 13 you know -- remember every crush. i did not remember that person, but i gave her the tickets because it was a good time. >> so that's a technique that people should use. >> that's right. [laughs] >> for those who are not familiar with the museum, it took you how many years to get that from beginning to end? >> i worked on it for 11 years. >> 11 years. and when you took the job, how much money to the federal government give you for that? >> when we began we had one staff, no collections, no money, no idea where the museum would be. this smithsonian had 1 million dollars to get started. i spent that in my two weeks.

>> so ultimately, you've got artifacts largely given by citizens of our country. how many artifacts and historic things did you bring to the museum? >> we collected nearly 40,000 artifacts, of which 70% came from the basements and attics of people's homes. we realized that the idea that this culture, this history was still available, we felt the only way we could do it is if we could get people to share with us their stories, their families, their history, through those collections. >> among the things you have is net turner's bible. harriet cummings shawl. but the most popular item in the museum is which one? >> shut berries can be read -- candy apple red catalog. an artifact that i did not want and did not think was important, which shows you my leadership skills. >> how many people have been to

the museum since it opened? >> about 7.3 million. >> and the average person who goes to a smithsonian museum spent about an hour and a half there. what is the average time someone spends going to this museum? >> four and a half to five and a half hours. so it really tells you that if you craft stories in a dramatic way, people will spend the time to understand and think about and debate them. we are pleased it has become the kind of site like for the pilgrims. people feel the need to be a part of it. we are really grateful to have the opportunity to work with people like you and the gifted staff to create that museum. >> the federal government put up 270 million dollars for taxpayers. how much did you raise from citizens around the country? >> 350 million. let's talk about the great

birth defect of this country. how did it happen that this country had slavery that was not ordained when settlers came over here. how did that come about? >> what you have or really two systems that are created. you have spanish colonies in florida and 8."cñmexico where ty begin to bring africans, enslaved people, as early as%2ó5 50. the united states has the first africans coming in 16 19. process of becoming a slave took time. initially, africans were lake indentured servants. within 30 or 40 years, it was clear that africans were restricted to slavery for life. what you realize is that slavery is an economic system of labor. later, it's a system of social

control as more and more africans come. the most important thing to remember is that slavery from the 17th, 18th, and 19th century was the most dominant institution in the united states. almost every aspect of our culture, whether it was politics, foreign policy, industry was all shaped by either slave trade, labor of slaves, or the money that was invested. i have always been struck that when you think on the eve of the civil war it was more money invested in slaves, and the enslaved population than in railroads, banking, business combined. that tells you what's so central understanding who we are. the conversation is so important because it's not an ancillary story. it's the central story helping us to understand who we once were and shaped us for this

very day. >> the first african zoo came here, were they brought as indentured servants, theoretically working for a few years and leaving, or was it clear they were slaves forever from the beginning? >> i think it's clear that they were viewed as different, but i think that way we can tell by the formal records, it's really a 16 sixties that you see the institution of slavery made concrete. >> ultimately, and south america, central america, and the united states, a total of 20 million slaves, were brought here. how many were actually brought over? more in central and south america than the united states? >> only 13% of the millions of africans that were taken from africa and brought to the new world, only 13% came to what

became the united states. more came to places like brazil in the caribbean, yet that 13% became such a large important part of the population of the united states that it really began to outweigh its initial numbers. >> larger numbers were in brazil and other places because they died much more rapidly, because of weather and other treatments there in the united states. is that right? >> you also had agriculture better developed in terms of sugar in the lights in the caribbean. >> is it 800,000 or 1600 thousand africans who came to the united states? at the time of the revolution, we had half 1 million slaves? at the time of the civil war, about 4 million? >> about 4 million enslaved

africans and about 1.5 freed africans in both the north and south. >> what were the chances you would survive? >> there is a lot of debate about mortality. many people feel that 30 to 50% perished. either on the ships or on the way to plantations or minds where they ultimately worked. it was key that the middle passage was really something that was hard for people to survive, and it really was one of the markers of understanding the impact of slave trade on the africans. >> when the declaration of independence was agreed to on july 4th, 1776, we fought a revolutionary war and had the treaty of paris. was there any mention of slaves

or was slavery anything that they wanted to mention as a problem? >> i think there is a whole discussion around jefferson but getting to identify the treatment of the colonists, like they were enslaved. but i think there was such a concern that if you begin to explore the question of slavery, you add colonial is have to figure out what it means for us. i think slavery is always the most visible thing, but also a thing that is trying not to be mentioned. >> jefferson is considered the author of the declaration and people make changes along the way. we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. how can he sale men are created equal when he had slaves throughout his lifetime and wasn't proposing to end slavery? >> that's what i call the

paradox of liberty. on one hand, here is jefferson, who defines our notion of what liberty is, what independence and freedom is. but then you realize the only reason he was able to do that was because he understood what's slavery was. in essence, because he saw and used the power to control other people, he understood what freedom meant. but for me, what is so powerful is how do you unpack that? how do you help people understand that 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 embracing of slavery, and in essence for us, we are still trying to untangle that, trying to really be clear of what it means. we are a nation of freedom that was based on slavery. >> when the war is over and the

treaty of paris is signed, the articles of confederation were not working. the constitutional convention is held in philadelphia. in that convention, washington presides over it. is there any mention in the constitution, when it finally is revealed, of slavery? >> there is always these amazing debates in the constitution. one is about representation. the notion was that representation based on population, to many people, that meant to you count slaves and enslaved populations? does that give the south more impact? enslaved people are counted as three fifths of a person for tax evasion and for representation. that really sort of speaks to the way in slaved people were viewed. >> the word slave is not used

in the constitution for all the obvious reasons. they did not want to admit what they had, but they obviously recognized it. they even banned the importation of slaves, but did not use the word. george washington becomes the first president in new york, and then congress passes a law saying we will move the capital to philadelphia, and then eventually south of that in order to deal with certain deck issues the government had. ultimately, they decided to move it further south than philadelphia. washington was giving a right to pick a site and he picked something along the potomac. why the potomac? >> in some ways, it was a place that already had it georgetown. there was tobacco trading. you had the river systems. he thought this was a really nice spot that was between the north and south.

>> so they will build a capital city, a federal city, not yet named after him, although eventually it was. were there any slaves living in the washington area at the time? well, from the very beginning of what we call the washington area, there were plantations. there were enslaved people that lived here before it became officially washington. >> right. so to build the city of washington, did they import labor from overseas or did they just use slave labor? well really built it? >> i think washington is built by many people. it is built by immigrants that are brought into work. there's a strong and slaved population that turns the land from swamp to farmland. that begins to identify and cut down the trees, the timber that is used. that also quarries the stone. and slave labor touches all

aspects of what would become washington d.c.. >> let's suppose i'm a plantation owner and i have some slaves. i want to help the city of washington, or what became washington, when i get paid for that if my slaves were used? did the slaves get any compensation? what did the slave labor get typically? >> what you have is ... first of all, you have people who use their in slaved population to do the work, and those folks really got compensated. then what would have been was many times and slaved crafts people and others were hired out. you would say i am building a building and i need labor. i would like to hire three of your carpenters. what would usually happen is that you would pay a plantation owner. sometimes it was done in a way to incentivize the enslaved,

that they would get a small portion of that. but most of the revenue went back to the owner. >> okay. so the government is operating out of philadelphia as they are building what would become washington d.c. george washington is supervising it. he's picking people to help with the design. he picked somebody to design the white house. is that right? that was someone from europe. when they started building the design that had been agreed to, was it slave labor that actually built the white house? >> over 200 enslaved people were to construct the white house. while there were craft people from ireland and england and parts of 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 it 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. >> so when it was finally completed, it took about eight years to finally built the house, george washington was no longer president and the president was john adams. he came down and lift your only for a few months before his term was up, he only served one term. but when he lived there, did he have any slates servicingp?vtñ white house? >> adams did not own any slaves, but there were in slaved people who worked at the white house. so you begin to $x]oçhave ensld people working from almost the inception really through the 1850s, working in the white house itself. >> so he was very careful to never owned slaves, he did not believe in slavery i guess, but he in fact had enslaved people working at the white house. i presume he knew they were

enslaved. >> there was labor that was needed. so for adams, there were people who did the laundry, some people did the work around the exterior into care of the horses. they were enslaved. >> adams was succeeded by jefferson. jefferson was a big slave owner. he had a longtime relationship with a slave, sally endings. did he ever bring selling hemmings to the white house? >> what jefferson did is that he brought some of sally hemmings family to the white house. but what jefferson did was that he brought a portion of his own enslaved population, but he often used people who were already here because you wanted to keep people on the plantation. but jefferson realized, like so many, that the key was -- to his success was to be able not to pay for all of the labor, but use enslaved labor to save money. jefferson was succeeded by

madison, he was also a slave owner. did madison brings life to the white house? >> nine of the first 12 presidents brought in slave people, used in slave labor at the white house. 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? when they realized was and slave labor that would provide the foundation to craft and create what became the white house. >> one of his assistance was a slave called paul hemmings. he later wrote a book about what it was like to work at the white house. did they accept the credibility, that is elaborate the book? >> i think it's important to realize that the enslaved people often did not have a voice. when they had the opportunity to write or have their stories told, they share them in a very candid way. it's really one of the first

books to help us understand what life was like in the white house. it was interesting because through the lens of someone who was in slaved, it brings a special richness to it. >> so many people who were from the north war against slavery, but they didn't have any problems going to the white house. they just took it as life in washington? >> remember, there's a difference between being opposed to slavery and feeling that african americans are equal, or people that you can interact with. there were people who were comfortable with african americans as a second-class citizen, doing the kind of basic work that needed to be done. they may have a post slavery, but they also did not champion equality. >> in the early days of washington d.c. when adams is president, jefferson, madison, monroe, washington was mostly a white city?

but there were some slaves and freed african americans? >> throughout the 19th century, approximately a third of the population of washington d.c. was african american. there were places like george town that had a predominantly african american community in the 18th and early 19th century. what you have in washington ... what i love to say is that this neighborhood that we are in was a black neighborhood. it was a neighborhood of an equals, but it was a neighborhood where many african americans lived. some enslaved, some free, so i think it's important to realize that, for many people, african americans win, washington became their home and they did a variety of jobs to be central to the city. >> there were a fair number of freed african american slaves here, but there were also a number of slaves. did you have to carry papers with you down the street? how did they handle that?

>> washington became a place that the free black population began to grow. when people gained their freedom in places like virginia and north carolina, they were often encouraged to leave and not to stay. many came to washington d.c. as you get into the 1810s and 1820s, you begin to develop what they called black codes. there were laws passed to control the pre-black community. to make sure that they registered. there were laws in the 1820s that said if you were fully -- free black and wanted to stay in washington, you needed somebody white writing a letter attesting to your character. there were laws that prevented african americans from being out together after a certain time at night, or reduce the number of african americans who could come together. part of this is out of fear. part of this is out of social

control. >> andrew jackson, when he became president, he had been a slave owner as well. did he bring slaves to washington d.c. as well? >> andrew jackson is so interesting on many levels. not only does he bring enslaved people, but during his administration, through the trail of tears and others, they have the removal of all of these indians in the southeast which opens 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, their ellen -- delaware, north carolina, d.c., they move south. they are sold south to build the new plantations. that changes the dynamics of the city. >> the white house today faces lafayette square a jackson part. a lot of town homes that have been restored there, those homes were initially built by slaves? >> a lot of those homes had slave labor involved.

there were crafts people, sometimes enslaved, sometimes free, sometimes not. of right of people, and part of what i love about the white house historical society is doing, it's helping us understand more about who did wet. in some ways, this work being done really gives humanity back to these people who we say were just enslaved. one of the houses that is still in lafayette part is the decatur house, which is where the white house historical association has its offices. the decatur house was named after a famous navy admiral, steve indicator -- stephen decatur, he did not live very long. that house had slave quarters, is that right? >> that's one of the houses we know that has a slave area that still exists. there were probably other parts and other houses around this area the changed over time, but that is one of the special

places to be able to actually go and stand in a space that the enslaved lived. >> so abraham lincoln is elected president in 1860. in those days, the elections were in november but you did not take office until march, so there 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 moved to washington. at that time when he came in as president in 1861 and took office, was their big -- was there a big african american population in d.c. then? was it larger than the white population? it was still asleep area, correct? >> when lincoln is 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 enslaved people early, it changes in

washington. so by the time lincoln comes, there's a strong sleigh population, there's a strong free population. where it grows dramatically is once the war breaks out. there are many african american enslaved who self liberate. they leave to come to union lines or washington. there are literally tens of contraband camps, camps where the self-liberated at arlington cemetery on seventh in florida up by the old soldiers home. so washington is changing as a result of the civil war, and more and more african americans, formerly enslaved, are coming into this area. >> abraham lincoln never owned any slaves. is that correct? >> that's right. >> i think his father was very anti slavery. it's an example of the way he was brought up. abraham lincoln was not a great abolitionist though. is that correct? >> lincoln believed ... his big issue was that they should not

extend slavery into the new territories after the mexican american war. >> he believed in the constitution. as long as the southern states alone have slavery, that was sanctioned by the founding fathers more or less, that was his original thinking. it obviously changed a bit. so he is in the white house. then in the civil war he's conducting that. this he decide it would be a good idea to free the slaves to kind of help and the war? why did take so long for him to come up with the emancipation proclamation? >> i think part of it is, as lincoln always said, he wanted to preserve the union. it preserving the union manned protecting slavery, so be it. but ultimately as the war went on, he realized that there were a couple of things that needed to be addressed. first of all, he had to make sure that the confederacy didn't get the support of european allies. so one of the things he wanted to do was to add a kind of

justification to the war so that you can say to the french into the english, to the spanish, this is about freeing people. not simply about an internal civil war. the second piece that was important was lincoln recognized the central italy of the 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 the control of the union army. that would disrupt the confederate war effort. >> before he was president, he served one term in congress as a whig. one of the bills he introduced was to free the slaves in the district of columbia. it's complicated when it was to free them, there would be compensation, it would be gradual, and the slaves would be moved somewhere else and what was called colonization. can you explain what colonization was? >> one of the things that happened is the belief that

you've got these african americans who are so different, that ultimately if they were not held in bondage, that they would be a great problem in the united states. jefferson always said that slavery was like having a wolf by the ear. if you let it go, it would get you. or it was a fireball in the night that would shock you. so many people felt that if you are going to eliminate slavery, you also had to eliminate the enslaved. , so lincoln was part of a group of people who believed that the key was lettuce and slavery, but let us colonize, send them to latin america, back to africa, so that they can colonize with the christian spirit they learned in the but that would be a way to solve the problem because there was a concern that if you had all of these freed people, what do you do with them? what if they strike back because of the way --

because they were angry about the way they were treated? that was lincoln's notion. >> it never got anywhere in congress, when he was president of the united states he was still enamored with it. he had a famous meeting with african american leaders. what did he say to themmkn=;.ate white house? >> he said 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 of the united states by choice was a debate within the african american community. the notion of being told to leave really angered so many of the abolitionists. people like frederick douglass were really offended and attacked lincoln when it became clear that his initial notion was send these people outside the united states. >> so for those who may not be expert on what fredericton glass did and who he was, he was ... i guess he was a slave who had escaped and eventually

bought his freedom. what was his role in society those days? >> frederick douglass was someone who escaped slavery from the eastern shore of maryland. he ended up first in philadelphia and then new york and then new bedford. he became calm -- he became one of the leaders in the abolitionist movement. he was brilliant speaker. he was fronded -- befriended by william lord garrison and other abolitionists. douglas becomes the voice of black america. he created newspapers. he debates with lincoln. he was seen as someone who would sort of demand that america live up to its stated identity and 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 eloquent. 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 in some states. is that not the case? it was against the law and some of the states? >> in some states, yes. >> so how did he actually learn how to read? part of his appeal was that he was educated and people were surprised to see such an educated african american at that time? >> there were two things that were crucial to enslaved people. one was freedom. that was the most important thing. the other thing was that may be the key to freedom was education, being able to receive. so douglas was able to learn to read by playing with some of the children that he grew up with, overlooking a kind of -- a kind mistress gave him lessons. but douglass was a voracious reader and had a desire to learn. 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 at the white house. >> yes. >> did he actually have a bond with lincoln? did lincoln like meeting with him and so forth? >> well, there are debates around that. i think unnaturally, lincoln was so critical of his colonization standard. as lincoln is thinking about the emancipation proclamation, you're suddenly talking to people like -- to friendly -- people like frederick douglass. frederick douglass becomes, if not a champions, more of a supporter of lincoln. there is this amazing scene near the end of lincoln's life where he speaks and his second unalterable. douglass is there and trying to get into see lincoln. he's being stopped by some of the guards. lincoln sees him and waits him in and says, come in friend douglass. i think there was a relationship.

i'm not sure it was as close as some people would like. >> after lincoln's associate -- assassination though, his wife gave his walking cane to douglass as a gift. is that right? >> mary todd lincoln, his widow, gave a walking cane to fredericton goes to symbolize which he felt was the bond between them. but also to symbolize that lincoln was somebody who opened the door and led to the freedom of the enslaved. >> if the emancipation proclamation inside on january 1st, 1863, the war ends in 1865, then the 13th amendment is ratified after lincoln dies. so slavery is eliminated. so when slavery is eliminated, everything in washington is fine. blacks can live next to whites. everyone is treated equally. there is no problem. is there right? >> oh, i'm not even sure that is today. [applause] >> so how did it happen after the 13th amendment?

14th amendment gave citizenship to blacks. the 15th amendment give the right to vote. how is it the case that washington became still a segregated a city as almost any city in the deep south? >> remember, segregation was initially a northern fremont -- phenomena. it's really boston, new york, philadelphia, the passes laws to prevent african americans from going to theaters. that really segregates communities. so 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 in the 19 fifties, my parent -- i lived in baltimore. my parents would bring me here to washington. it was a segregated as baltimore was. the fact it was the nation's capital did not really change anything. >> there were two differences. one is that washington had the

federal government. so there were opportunities for employment that many african americans had. not at the highest level, but they had steady jobs that you could get from the federal government. also, washington hand howard university. howard university is so important. people undervalued it's in fact because it really made washington a 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. therefore, people who lived in the district, large numbers of them were african american, they did not have any right to vote for president or members of congress i should say. so what was that the case and why did people not say that people lived in the district have some voting representation in congress? >> now you're asking me to do my politics.

i think that in some ways there is this debate about what's a federal sector is. are you a citizen there? what are your rights? i think that the challenge of washington is that it really is a place where you could call it the sort of last colony. it's really a place where ... [applause] >> and i think it's important to really grapple with the fact that you've got 600,000 people or more, many of whom are voting age, who really have limited rights that are not the same as people around the country. >> in addition to not being able to vote for members of congress, the district was for a long time run by the federal government. the citizens here did not get to pick their own mayor. is that right? >> that's right. i think home rule is really a

1970s creation. >> to finish this story, let's go back, while we are almost done with the story of race in washington, although we compressed a couple hundred years in 45 minutes. >> we mr. pugh insurrections. >> right. after reconstruction, because lincoln is assassinated, reconstruction does not go quite as well as people thought it would have gone under lincoln. andrew johnson is not necessarily the same person as abraham lincoln. segregation -- reconstruction led to jim crow laws, ku klux klan, lynchings in the south and so forth. washington d.c. did not do that much about the federal government, it was largely controlled by some southern members who were not really that favorable to african americans. not until the civil rights revolution in the 1960s did washington get more interested and actually trying to change these things. is that right? is that when it came about? the late fifties and early 60s, when the civil rights revolution came along, that the

federal government officials said we have to do something to change the laws in this country? >> would you have, again, because of washing -- howard university was at the forefront of demanding fairness in the 1920s, thirties and forties. it wasn't that they waited until the 1960s, but the pressures on the federal government, the leadership that the civil rights movement did, the visibility that it received utilizing the media and television, that put pressure on the federal government to change. >> right. so in august of 1963, there is the famous march in washington. the federal government at the time did not want it. president kennedy thought it might lead to violence. there was a lot of concern about it. it went forward and turned out it wasn't violent at all. people were worried so much that schools were closed and so forth. martin luther king was the last speaker that they. he was the last speaker because ... >> in some ways he was considered the leader of the community and they wanted to give him the best spot. >> i thought they were afraid

that he was so articulate that if he spoke first, the others will not look as good. >> john lewis said that. >> okay, that's not true. so he spoke and he gave his famous speech. that famous speech, the i have a dream speech, was that something he wrote out the night before? was it a speech writer who gave him that text? where did the speech come from? the text that he actually had, he kind of departed from it. why did he do that? >> there were many sources. he had said portions of that speech in other places around the country. the story is that, as he's giving his speech, the great gospel singer, my dalia jackson, someone that king and mired, she yelled back at him, there's a picture of her turning at king and saying, talk about the dream. say the dream. so the argument is that he changed to respond to her. it's a great story, it's not true, but it's a great story.

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 have a dream part, and he sort of did it from memory. >> right. >> many whites who saw it warm -- mesmerized. they had never seen him speak that way. many blacks were as memorized because they have not heard him speak like that. some had traveled and heard him. after the speeches over, is he invited to the white house? >> after the speeches over, what happens is that the candidates are moved by what they've heard and what they experienced. i think they begin -- the began to realize that if they are going to grapple with civil rights issues, one of the people they need to deal with is martin luther king. so he becomes sort of a person that the kennedys and it really go to. there is this wonderful story oh of, during the election of 1960, dr. king is arrested and there was a notion of who was going to help him.

someone for the nixon administration, kennedy. the kennedy's actually sent people down to protect martin luther king and help him get out of jail. some people argue that really was what helped many african americans suddenly believe that somebody from massachusetts with an accent they did not understand could really champion their cause. >> right. assassinated november 22nd, 1963, just a few months after the march in washington. lyndon johnson, a southerner and a man who was closest friends in the senate were segregationists, he becomes president. did anyone predict that he would lead the effort to get the 1964 civil rights act passed? why did he do that given his background and the knowledge that this would probably heard the democratic party in the south? >> on the one hand, you've got to remember that when lyndon johnson was a teacher in texas, he was very involved with trying to improve conditions for the latino community. so there is a part of johnson

that wasn't just a calculated political move. i think he really felt that fairness was essential. 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 what is so powerful about lyndon johnson is that he has the political sophistication, the connections, to be able to go to some of the[ southerners and say i understand who you are, but you've got to change. >> okay. so the 64 civil rights act is passed. the housing act is passed eventually as well. lyndon johnson is probably the most important person for the acts to pass. is that right? he was the indispensable person? >> i think it is a combination of lyndon johnson's political axiom in and the pressures that are put on by the civil rights

movement. >> right. >> i think as people begin to see birmingham and selma, as people begin to see the violence that african americans and others endured, there is a sense that the country has to change and johnson sort of writes that wave. >> so if somebody is watching or someone is here today and they say i'm pretty interested in which you had to say. what books could i read that might give me more of a flavor of what washington went through in the civil rights era? what's slavery was in this country and how it was dealt with eventually why the constitutional amendments. what would you recommend as books for people to read? >> anything by taylor branch. >> taylor branch wrote a three volume book on the civil rights revolution. one volume one the pulitzer prize. >> i think one of the best books to understand race in the

19th century is david lights biography up frederick douglass. >> that also won the pulitzer prize. there's another book that has not yet won the pulitzer prize, which is your book. >> [laughs] >> so i highly recommend that book. that is available on amazon and anywhere else anyone might want to buy it for the smithsonian? >> i would never champ in my own book, but it's on amazon and it's also an audiobook. >> so, lonnie, just before we wrap up, you have given your professional career win two causes related to civil rights, slavery, the knowledge of slavery and creating the african american historical and culture museum. how did you actually come to this career as opposed to something more important like hedge 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'm lucky. i grew up in a family that valued education. for me, i remember growing up in a town that was very few african americans. they were people who treated me horribly and other people who treated me fairly. and 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 away from me to understand myself. then it became a way for me to think, here is an amazing tool that could help a country to 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've told this story before, if you could briefly tell it again.

when you were younger, your father would take you and your brother and your mother and drive to the south. you would not stop at certain places, but he would take you to the smithsonian. why was that? >> what happened was during the mid sixties, it was the era of the centennial of the civil war. like many kids i was fascinated by it. one easter we drove from my home in new jersey to visit my mother's family in north carolina. i suddenly saw all of these museums in petersburg and richmond. i would say to my dad, can we stop at the museum of the confederacy? he never stopped. and so on the way back, i thought i'm going to plan this and give him plenty of warning. i told him to go 20 more miles until the museum. he kept going. normally he would drive straight to new jersey. instead, he pulled into washington and he pulled into the smithsonian in front of

museum of america, where the museum of american history is today. he said here is the place you can learn about your past and your country and not be concerned about the color of your skin. so for me, this smithsonian has always been a place of fairness, a place a possibility, a place where a young kid could not learn stories in some places, but the smithsonian always gave him 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 lonnie unanimously, unanimously. one of the great things about lonnie being selected was that when he was officially inaugurated, his mother was there. so what could be better than having your mother come to see you? did you think you should take that job?

>> well, it was the first time my mother said to me i guess a history degree was okay. >> lonnie i want to thank you for what you've done for the country, for the smithsonian, and tonight. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> i want to know if i can get a hedge fund. that's what i want to know. >> thank you very much to doctor lonnie bunch and david rubenstein for this conversation. in addition to the books that have been recommended, i would like to invite everyone to our website, whitehousehistory.org.

there's a treasure trove of those enslaved in decatur house, those enslaved who built the white house, and those insights to our president in the white house. thank you all for being here and being in support of our historical mission. [applause]

up next, a look at the district of columbia emancipation act of april 16th, 1862. the act rate about 3100 slaves in the nation's capital and compensated owners for each former slave. the panel also talked about the influence the act had on the emancipation proclamation, which was issued eight months later. >> on this day