as a public service. up next, smithsonian secretary lonnie bunch and david rubenstein discuss slavery in >> please welcome rob fisher. [ applause ] >> welcome, good evening. my name is rob fisher. i'm the rector of st. john's church and 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 henry latrobe. not only did he design this church, he worked on the white house after it was destroyed in 1812. and in 1818, he built the decatur house. and if grow inside the decatur house and you look up, you see a very similar entrance. it's almost like a miniature of this dome that we have in our church space. and the original church was built as a greek cross. it was an even four sides. and six years later in 1822, they expanded the church building to make room for more seating. we don't know who the architect was who did that expansion and

who built the bell tower. tragically, latrobe had already died at that time. he died in new orleans. i imagine there might be some historians in the room. if anyone is interested in helping us involve the mystery, we would love to know. the bell tower is a beautiful addition to the church. and it houses a bell that was forged by paul revere's son. stamped on it, it has 1822, boston revere. it's not the only revere 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 too to think about this building. this is the only building on lafayette square that goes back to the era that it goes back to that is still being used for the purpose for which it was built more than 200 years later. and i'm very happy to say that we are open most days of the

week and we welcome anybody who likes to come in and to spend some time and be in this gracious space. i also feel compelled to mention that it usually looks a little different than it does tonight. stewart was telling me this could be practice for our new tell evangelism ministry. the church decided to offer him a special pew that would be reserved for his use any time that he wanted to come to church. back then, they were boxes and 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's pew right in the middle of the people rather than up in front which was the high status pew

boxes. they wanted his pew just to be among all the other people who were here for prayer and worship. and that tradition continued in 1842 when the pews that exist now were installed, that you're all sitting in. in 1842, the president was president tyler and he personally made sure that the president's pew would be in the exact location where the pew box had been beginning with madison and it is a fact that every president beginning with president madison has worshiped in this space at least once. many have become regulars and some have become members of st. john's during their presidencies. one detail that really 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 new york avenue presbyterian

church. but in the evenings, he would walk alone across the park and sit in the very last pew on the south side right over there and 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 to pray, and he would always leave just before the end of the service so he could leave undisturbed. it's a prayer of mine 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 the city that moves very quickly. and i want to say to you all, 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. now, i am really excited for the conversation that we are about to have tonight and it's important to say it's 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. and one historical detail that i want to leave you with, a poignant note, the second rector of her church, he was rector from 1817 to 1845, his name was reverend william holly. he would have the practice of baptisting african-american

babies and marrying african-american couples in his home. as the historians in this room who have been working hard on the essays that are being produced know very well, we don't have all of 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've collected upstairs in the church archives, we have the registers of all of the baptisms and the marriages and in some of them we see the notes where it says where it took place, when he would marry african-americans he would usually do it in his home, and his family would be the witnesses. on january 11th, 1828, reverend holly married emily matthews and william pratz. emily was listed as colored and william was listed as slave.

and 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 and i will now welcome forward my good friend, the president of the white house historical association. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. to the people of st. john's church, it's wonderful to be in your historic home, in this historic neighborhood tonight for this very, very important conversation. i also want to thank the string queens who performed for us as you were coming in. they're a local washington, d.c., group and it's wonderful to have them with us tonight and i hope you enjoyed their music.

[ applause ] to your friends joining us tonight by c-span and on facebook live, welcome, we hope you enjoy this conversation and it encourages you to dive deeper into the topic we'll be unpacking for you this evening. i'm here tonight on behalf of the board of directors of the white house national association, 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 at the political convention in philadelphia, first lady michelle 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 email, our internet, our press office, our historians were all inundated from the public, the press, people wanting to know the story behind those very compelling words. my first call was to dr. lonnie bunch that will be part of our conversation tonight. we need to know more about this story. we know anecdotes, but we need to know names, dates, specifics. it's 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 and thus began a three-year project

delving into this topic. during that time, we had the privilege to host at the decatur house a group called the presidential leadership scholars. this is a program that is a collaboration of the presidential libraries and foundations of presidents clinton, both bushes and president johnson, and they bring together these young, dynamic, early career leaders and they were at a program at the decatur house right across the park, where is our headquarters, they went into the slave quarters that night and i think they were intrigued, encouraged, maybe a little inspired but they took us to task telling us we need to do a better job telling that story. so we folded that story of the decatur house and the last remaining example of the slave quarters in the president's neighborhood into this story that we're telling tonight. we previously this week unveiled our website, emphasis on this

topic with a treasure-trove of research documents and papers. and at white househistory.org, you can find all of those when you go home tonight. this is not the end of what we'll be doing. this is really the beginning. we're raising the curtain on this conversation and we want to encourage it through our continued research and ongoing program that we'll be undertaking as well. this fits with our mission. we were founded in 1961 by first lady jacqueline kennedy to be the non-profit, nonpartisanrxól partner to the white house. every year, we provide nontaxpayer funding to maintain the beautiful museum standard of those state rooms that you see on the state floor of the white house. but also important to mrs. kennedy was an education mission. she challenged us to teach-rj! tell the stories of the white house and its history going back to 1792 when george washington selected that piece of land across the country and hired the

young irish architect to build the white house. we do that through public programming such as tonight, our books, quarterly magazine, website, social media, 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 were students. reverend fisher mentioned the president's pew. seated in the president's pew tonight are students from calvin coolidge high school in washington, d.c. they participated in a podcast with me and a wonderful students, and i would like for them to stand. are they here. [ applau [ applause ] and so tonight they're in the president's pew. and one thing we like to think of as educators, we plan the seed and water the seed, but we may never see the results of

that education. and we opened one day these students and their peers are back here maybe as president of the united states sitting in the president's pew. they're great friends of mine and it's great to have them here this evening. we have the privilege of having two wonderful presenters tonight. david rubenstein is the co-founder of the carlisle group. he's been the chairman of the board and held senior governance positions with many organizations that you're familiar with, including the smithsonian institution, the john f. kennedy performing arts center which is the living memorial for president kennedy, the harvard corporation, duke university, the council on foreign relations and many others. he has a heart and a passion for patriot patriotic philanthropy and he is involved with the white house historical association, sister institutions that are supporting history causes, great american

monuments like the lincoln memorial and the washington monument he's helped save. he's been a giver of transformational gifts that allow us through the national center for white house history to have programming like this and undertake the research that we do. we're very, 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. he's recently an 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 is dr. lonnie bunch. he's the first african-american and the first historian to hold

this very important role in our country. [ applause ] >> you know him as the founding director of the national mutual of african-american history and culture. he was the very first person i called when this initiative came onto our radar screen. he's the author of a new book creating the national museum of african-american history. and i really encourage you to read this. it tells the wonderful story of someone who is able to move and mix and make things happen across political lines and beliefs. and that's a wonderful thing in this day and time. and his role, as is our role, is the same regardless of who the president and the first lady may be. our role is to support the people of the united states and the resources that they have here in washington, the

smithsonian institution and the historic white house. he is the adviser to many boards including the committee for the preservation of the white house which we work with very closely and collaboratively, and we are really thrilled and honored to have both david rubenstein and lonnie bunch with us tonight. please join me in welcoming them to the stage. [ applause ] >> lonnie, you think in 1816 when this was open for james madison, you or i, our ancestors would have been here? >> the back door. >> right. we're very honored to be here tonight. this is an historic place and a terrific place to talk about the white house and the history and slavery related to it. just before i dig into that, though. at the african-american history

and culture museum, if i want to get tickets to see something, how do i get tickets to go. everybody wants to see this museum? >> everybody has been calling me and i've tried to say that i'm no longer there. but what 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 and i said, i don't do that. and she said, well you got to give them to me because i was your girlfriend in seventh grade. [ laughter ] >> now i got to be honest. when you're 13, you remember every crush. i didn't know that person from adam, but i gave her the tickets because it was a good tie. >> there you go. so that's a technique that people should use? [ laughter ] of that museum, just for those who aren't that familiar with it and we'll get into the other subject in a moment, it took you how many years to get that from beginning to end. >> 11 years. >> when you took the jobs, you

would -- how much money did 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. the smithsonian had a million dollars to get started. i spent that in, like, two weeks. >> and so ultimately you got artifacts given by citizens of our country. how many artifacts and historic things the did you bring to the museum? >> we collected nearly 40,000 artifacts of which 70% came from the basements, trunks 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, if we could get people to share with us their stories, their families, their histories through those collections. >> among the things you have, you have nat turner's bible, harriet tubman's shawl.

but the most popular item in the museum is which one? >> chuck berry's candy apple red cadillac. an artifact i did not want, did not think is 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 spends about an hour and a half there. what is the average time that somebody spends going to this museum? >> 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours. so it really is -- it tells you that if you craft stories in a dramatic way that people will spend the time to understand, to think about, and to debate. so we're really pleased that it's become the kind of site that in some ways almost is a pilgrimage site. and so we're grateful to have the opportunity to work with people like you and the gifted staff to create that museum. >> so the federal government ultimately put up $270 million,

the taxpayers. how much have you raised from citizens around the country. >> about 350 million. >> wow. [ applause ] >> very impressive. okay. let's talk about the great birth defect of this country. how did it happen that this country had slavery? was it ordained when the settlers came over here that we were going to have slaves? how did that come about? >> what you have are really two systems that are created. you have spanish colonies in florida and mexico where they begin to bring africans, some as enslaved people, as early as 1550. in the united states you begin -- what became the united states, you have the first africans coming in 1619, in jamestown. but the process of becoming a slave took time. initially, the africans were

like endentured servants. within 30 or 40 years, it was clear that africans were then restricted to slavery for life. and so what you realize is that slavery is both an economic system, a system of labor, later it's a system of social control, as more and more africans come to this world. but i think 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. that almost every aspect of our culture, whether it was politics, foreign policy, industry, was all shaped by either slave trade -- slavery, the labor of slaves or the money that was invested in slaves. and i've always been struck, that when you think on the eve of the civil war, there was more money invested in slaves, in the enslaved population, than in railroads, banking, business

combined. so it tells you, it is so central to understanding who we are. so that's why this kind of conversation is so important because this is not an ancillary story. it shaped us into who we are this very day. >> the first africans who came here, were they brought as indentured servants or brought as slaves forever. >> it was clear that they were viewed different. by the way we can tell by the formal records, it's the 1640s to 1616 that you see the institution of slavery made sort of concrete, if you will. >> so ultimately in south america, central america and the united states, what became the united states, a total of 20 million slaves at one point were, i guess, here.

but how many were actually brought over? mostly -- more in central america and south america than the united states? >> what you have to realize is, only 13% of the millions of africans that were taken from africa and brought to the new world, only 13% came to the united states. more came to places like brazil, in the caribbean, but yet that 13% became such a large part of the population of the united states that it began to outweigh its initial numbers. >> larger numbers were in brazil and other places because they died rapidly because of the weather and treatments there than in the united states, is that right? >> you also had the agriculture was better developed in terms of sugar and 3y&cb7 like in the caribbean, that's where it started. >> totally, the united states

brought over about -- is it 800,000 africans who came to the united states. obviously, they reproduced and so forth. at the time of the revolution, we had about half a million slaves? >> right. >> at the time of the civil war, about 4 million slaves. g enslaved africans and 1.5 freed africans in both the north and south. >> if you were brought over in a slave ship, what was the chance you were going to survive? >> there's a lot of debate about morality. many people feel that 30% to 50% of those that brought on those ships perished. either perished on the ships or perished on the way to plantations or mines where they ultimately worked. so the fact that it was key that that 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. >> so when the declaration of independence was agreed to, more or less, on july the 4th, 1776, we fought a revolutionary war, at the time in the declaration of independence, was there any mention of slaves? was slavery anything that the people who put the declaration wanted to mention as a problem or they didn't address it? >> i think there's this whole discussion around jefferson sort of beginning 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, as colonials, have to figure out what does that mean for us? and so i think slavery is always the most visible thing, but also the thing that's often tried to not be mentioned. >> jefferson is considered the author of the deceleration of independence. there were people who made changes along the way.

he wrote this famous sentence, we hold these truths to be self-evident. that all men are created equal. how could he say all men were created equal when he had slaves throughout his lifetime? how did he get away with saying that? >> that's what i call the paradox of lishberty. on the one hand, here is jefferson who defines our notion of what liberty is, but then you realize the only reason he was able to do that is because he understood what slavery was. that in essence, because he saw and used the power to control other people, he understood what freedom meant. but i think that for me what's so powerful is, how do you unpack that, how do you help people understand that at the same time he's seen as a symbol around the world of freedom. he's also a symbol around of american culpability, american

embracement of slavery and in essence for us, we're still as a people trying to untangle that, trying to be clear what it means that we are a nation of freedom that was based on slavery. >> so when the revolution is over, the treaty of paris is signed, we go through government and the articles of confederation, that wasn't thought to be working. a constitutional convention is held and george washington presides over it. is there any mention in the constitution of slavery? >> well, there's always these amazing debates in the constitution. and one is about representation and the notion was that representation based simply on population. to many people, that meant does this count the enslaved population? does that give the south more influence? so you have the three fifths amendment where enslaved people

are counted as three fifths of a person for taxation and for representation. and that really sort of speaks to the way enslaved people were viewed, that they weren't completely human. that they were not equal. >> the word slave is not used in the constitution. they didn't want to quite admit it, what they had. but they recognized it and in effect they banned the importation of slave after a certain period of time but they still didn't use the word slave. but let's move forward. so the capital of the country initially is new york. george washington becomes the first president. then congress passes a law saying we're going to move the capital to philadelphia and then eventually a place south of that in order to deal with certain debt issues that the government had. there was a compromise. and ultimately it was 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.

why did he pick this potomac area? >> in some way it was a place that already had -- georgetown was here. there was some tobacco trading. he had the river systems. he thought that this was a really nice spot that was between the north and the south. >> okay. so they're going to build a capital city here, a federal city. not yet named after him, eventually it was named after him. 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. so there were enslaved people that lived here before it became officially washington. >> all right. so build the city of washington, did they import labor from overseas? who really built it? >> i think washington is built by many people. it is built by immigrant that is are brought in to work. but there's a strong sort of

enslaved population that turns the land from, you know, swamp to farmland, that begins to identify and cut down the trees, the timber that is used, that also quarries the stone so that 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 be built. i would say, i'll have you use some of my slaves. would i get paid for that and did the slaves get any of that compensation? what did the slave labor get, typically. >> 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, many times enslaved crafts people and others were hired out, that you would say, i am building a building and i need to have

labor. i would like to hire three of your carpenters or three of the people that you work with. usually what would happen is, you would -- the person building the structure would pay the plantation owner. sometimes it was done in a way to incentivize the enslaved, that they would get a small portion of that. but it really was most of the revenue went back to the owner. >> okay, so the government is operating out of philadelphia, as they're building the city of washington -- what became washington, d.c., and george washington is supervising it. he's picking various people to help with the design. he picked somebody to design the white house, is that right? >> uh-huh. >> and that was someone from europe who actually was the designer. when they started building the design that had been agreed to, was it slave labor that actually did build the white house? >> over 200 enslaved people worked to construct the white

house. that while there were crafts 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 virginia 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. >> so 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 and he came here and lived here a few months. he only served one term. when he lived there did he have any slaves servicing the white house? >> adams didn't own any slaves, 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 through into the 1850s working in the white house itself. >> so he was very careful not to ever own slaves. he didn't believe in slavery, i guess, but he in effect, had some enslaved people in the white house and he presumably knew they were enslaved. >> so there was labor that was needed. for adams, there were people who did the laundry. some of the people who did the work around the exterior, who took care of the horses were enslaved. >> adams was succeeded by jefferson. jefferson was a big slave owner and he had a longtime relationship with the slaves, sally hemings. did he actually ever bring sally hemings to the white house? >> what jefferson did was he brought some of sally hemmings' family to the white house and he took a portion of his enslaved population, but often he used

people who were already here because he wanted to keep people on the plantation, but jefferson realized like so many that the key it his success was going to not to be able to pay for all the labor, but to use enslaved labor to save money. >> jefferson was succeeded by madison. 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're trying to figure out what do you need to get a building going and to get a whees going? what do you need for the entertainment? it was slave lake ror that was going to provide the foundation for them to craft and create what became the white house. >> so one of his aides or assistants was a slave named paul hemmings who wrote a book who later worked at the white

house. did people believe slaves wrote in those days and why was it accepted? >> the enslaved people often didn't have a voice, but when they had the opportunity or to have their stories told they shared them in a very candid way. it is really one of the first books to help us understand about what life was like in the white house and definitely it was interesting because through the lens of someone who was enslaved brings a special richness to it. >> so many people who were from the north were against slavery and they didn't have any problems going to the white house where there was slave labor and they just accepted that as life in washington? >> remember that there's a difference between being opposed to slavery and feeling that african-americans are equal and are people that you can interact with. there were people that in whatever parts of the united states were comfortable with african-americans and a second-class citizen doing the

ind coup of basic work that needed to be done. they may have opposed slavery, but they also didn't champion equality. >> so in the early days of washington, d.c. when adams as president and jefferson, madison, monroe. washington was mostly a white city, but there were some slaves and some freed african-americans? +9 approximately a third of the population of washington, d.c. was african-american. there were places like georgetown that had a predom minutely african-american community in the 18th and early 19th century and what you have in washington is what i love to say is this neighborhood that neighborhood. it was a neighborhood of unequals, but it was a neighborhood where many african-americans lived and many as enslaved and some are free, and so i think it's important to realize that for many people,

african-americans, washington became their home and they did a variety of jobs to be central to the city. >> so there were a fair number of freed african-american slaves here, and so you have to carry papers with you down the street so if somebody said you're a slave, you shouldn't be doing this or that? how did they handle that? >> washington became a place that the free black population began to grow. partly, some people were emitted. often when people gained their freedom in places like virginia or north carolina they were encouraged to leave and not to stay. many came to washington, d.c. as you get into the 1810, 1820s, you begin to develop what we call black codes. there were laws passed to control the free black community and to make sure that they registered. there were laws in the 1820s who said you were free and black and wanted to stay in washington you

wanted to have somebody white, attesting to your character. there were laws that prevented african-americans from being out together after a certain time at night or reduced the number of african-americans that being come together. part of this is out of fear. part of this is out of social control. >> andrew jackson, when he became president he was a slave owner, as well. did he bring slaves to washington, d.c., as well? >> andrew jackson is so interesting on many levels because not only does he bring enslaved people, but during his administration through the trail of tears and others they had the removal of all these indians in the southeast which opens all of 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 were enslaved in maryland, delaware and north carolina and d.c., they move south. they're sold south to build the

new plantations and that changes the dynamics of the city. >> the white house today faces lafayette square and jackson park and 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 and there were craftspeople, sometimes free, sometimes not. so a variety of people and part of what i love about what the white house historical societiy is doing is helping us understand more about who did what? in some ways this work that's being done really gives humanity back to these people who we say were just enslaved. >> one of the houses that are still in lafayette park and is the decatur house which is where the white house historical association has its offices and the decatur house was named after a famous navy admiral who

died and didn't live very long in that house, but that house had slave quarters in it. is that right? >> they were -- that's one of the houses that we know has a slave area that still exists. there were other houses around this area that changed over time. that is one of the special places where you can actually go and stand in a space that the enslaved lived. >> abraham lincoln is elected president in 1860 and in those days the election was in november and you didn't take office until march and there was a long period in between, but in that period of time a number of states began to su seed from the union. so lincoln moves to washington. at that time when he came in as president in 1861 and he took office, was there a big african-american population at that time? and there was a big slave population, is that right?

>> when lincoln was elected in 1860 you have a population of about 12,000 freed african-americans and about 6,000 enslaved. so you see that although there were large numbers of slaves and slave people early, it changes in washington so by the time lincoln comes there is a strong slave population and there is a free black population. where it grows dramatically is once the war breaks out and that there are many african-american enslaved who self-liberate, who leave to come to union lines and who come to washington and there are literally tens of contraband camps and camps for the self-liberated on washington cemetery 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? >> i think his father was anti-slavery as the way he was brought up against slavery. abraham lincoln was not a great abolitionist, is that correct? >> his big issue is they shouldn't extend slavery into the new territories that were acquired after the mexican-american war. >> i think he believed as well that slavery was embedded in the constitution, and he believed in the constitution and he thought as long as southern states alone were sanctioned by the founding fathers and he obviously changed a bit. okay. so he's in the white house and then the civil war, he's conducting that and does he decide that it would be a good idea to free the slaves to end the war? why did it take so long for him to come up with the emancipation proclamation? >> part of it is as lincoln said he wanted to preserve the union and preserving the union meant protecting slavery, so be it,

but ultimately as the war wrnts 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 and so one of the things he wanted to do was add a moral justification to the war so that you could say to the french, to the english and the spanish, this is about freeing people, not simply about an internal civil war. the second piece that was important was lincoln recognized the centrality and the labor of the enslaved to the south. so what he wanted to do was to disrupt that by encouraging people to flee areas that were still outside of the control of the union army and that would disrupt the confederate war effort. >> before he was president he served one term in congress as a wig and one of the bills he introduced was in effect, free the slaves in the district of

columbia and his complicated way is tldz be gradual and the slaves would be somewhere else in 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 there 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 fire bell in the night that would shock you. and so many people felt if you were going to eliminate slavery you had to eliminate the enslaved. the key was let us end slavery, but let us colonize and send them to latin america, back to africa so that they can colonize with sort of the christian

spirit that they learned in the united states, but that would be a way to solve the problem because there was a concern that if you had all these freed people, what do you do with them? would they strike back? so that was lincoln's notion and they tried to several times. >> he never got anywhere in congress, but when he was president of the united states he was still enamored with it and he had the meeting with african-american leaders and what did he actually say to them? >> what he said was i need your support and 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 angered so many of the

abolitionists so people like frederick douglas were offended and it was the notion of send these people outside of the united states. >> for those who don't know who frederick douglas was -- he was a slave who had escaped and eventually bought his freedom and what was his role in society in those days? >> frederick douglas was someone who escaped slavery from the eastern shore of maryland and ended up first in philadelphia and then new york and new bedford and he became someone who was one of the leaders in the abolitionist movement. a brilliant speaker, he was befriended like abolitionist leaders like 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 demanding that america live up to its stated

identity and stated ideals. he's 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 were not allowed to learn how to read and it was considered against the law in some states? is that not the case? that it was against the law? >> in some states yes. >> what was that appeal that people were so surprised to see such an educated african-american at that time. >> there were two things that were crucial to enshave people. one was freedom. that was the most important thing, that maybe the key to freedom was education and being able to read and so douglas was able to learn to read by playing with some of the children he grew up with and overlooking a

kind mistress who gave him lessons and someone who was a voracious reader and a desire to learn and 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 on three occasions at the white house. did he actually have a bond with lincoln and did lincoln like meeting with him and so forth? >> there's debates around that. i think that initially lincoln was concerned that lincoln was so concerned about his colonization standard and lincoln was thinking about the emancipation proclamation. suddenly you're talking to people like frederick douglas and saying how does this work and douglas then becomes if not a champion, more of a&a09sw sup of lincoln. there's this amazing scene where lincoln speaks at his second

inaugural and douglas is there and douglas is trying to get in to see lincoln and he's being stopped by one of the guards and lincoln sees him and waves him in and he says come in, friend douglas. i think that there was a relationship. i'm not sure it's as close as some people would like to make it. >> after lincoln's assassination, his wife gave his walking stick to douglas. >> mary lincoln gave the walking cane to frederick douglas that symbolized the bond between them and to symbolize that lincoln was somebody who opened the door and led to the freedom of the enslaved. >> if the emancipation proclamation is signed on f$;ú1, 1863 and the wars in april 1865 and the 13th amendment is ratified after lincoln die, but it's ratified so slavery is eliminated. so when slavery is eliminated

everything in washington is fine. blacks can live next to whites and everybody is treated equally, is that right? >> oh, i'm not sure that's even today. [ laughter ] [ applause ] so how did it happen after the 14th amendment gave citizenship to plaques and how is it the case that washington became still as segregated a city as any city in the deep south. >> remember, segregation was initially a northern phenomena, that it's boston, new york, philadelphia that passes laws to prevent african-americans from going to theaters that segregates communities. so it wouldn't 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 1950s i lived in baltimore,

and it was segregated as baltimore was, so the fact that it was the nation's capitol didn't change anything and washington, d.c. was no different than other large, segregated cities in 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-american his and you had the steady jobs that you would get from the federal government and also washington had -- washington, d.c. had howard university and howard university is so important that people would undervalue its impact 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., in the constitution there was no provision for it to have electoral votes and therefore people who lived in the

district, large numbers of them were african-american and didn't have a 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 living in the district should have voting representation in congress. >> okay. now you're asking me to do my politics. 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 of washington is that it really is a place where you could call it the sort of last colony. it's a place where they don't have the citizen equality. [ applause ] and i think it's important that grapple with the fact that you have 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. >> well, in addition for not being able to vote for members

of congress who have rights to vote in congress, the district was for a long time run in effect by the federal government. the citizens didn't get to pick the mayor, is that right? >> the home rule is the 1970s creation. let's go back to finish the story while we were almost done with the story of race in washington and we compressed a couple hundred years. >> we missed a few insurrections and the like. after the reconstruction because lincoln is assassinated and reconstruction doesn't go quite as well as people think it would have gone under lincoln. andrew johnson was not exactly the same person as abraham lincoln. reconstruction led to jim crow laws. the ku klux klan, lynchings throughout the south and so forth, and washington, d.c. didn't do that much about the federal government and 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 in trying to change these things. is that right? is that when it came about in the 1960 'that they said we have to change the laws? >> washington, d.c., because of howard university was at the forefront of demanding fairness in the 1920s, '30s, '40s. so it really wasn't -- 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 put pressure on the federal government to change. >> so in august of 1963 there's the famous march on washington. the federal government at the time didn't want it and president kennedy thought it would lead to violence and it

turned out not to be violent at all and people were afraid and the stores were closed and schools were closed and so forth. martin luther king was the last speaker that day. 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 wouldn't look so good. >> john lewis said that. >> that's not true, okay. he gave that famous speech and the famous speech, the "i have a dream" speech, was that something that was written out the night before? was it the speechwriter that was given that text and where did it come from and he 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 point is that as he was giving that speech mahalia jackson, the great gospel singer

that someone king admired, and there is a picture of her looking at king telling him, talk about the dream, and that's a great story. that's not true, but that's a great story. [ laughter ] so he had the "i have a dream". >> he did it from memory. many whites who saw him were mesmerized and they hadn't heard him speak that way and many blacks didn't hear him speak that way. after the speech is over, is he invited to the white house? >> well, after the speech is over what happens is that the kennedys are moved by what they've heard and what they've experienced and i think they began to realize that if they're going to grapple with civil rights issue, one of the people they need to deal with is martin

luther king. so he becomes sort of a person that the kennedys initially go to and there's this wonderful story of during the elections of 1960, dr. king is rested and there was a notion of who was going to help him. was someone from the nixon administration or from the kennedy and they sent people down to protect martin luther king to get hum out of jail and some people argue that was what helped many african-americans helped that someone from massachusetts with an accent they didn't understand would could champion their cause. president kennedy is assassinated in 1963 just a few months after the march on washington. the closest friends in the senate were segregationists and he becomes president. would anybody have predicted that he would lead the effort to get the 1964 civil rights act passed and why would he do that given his background and

knowledge knowing that this would probably hurt the democratic party in the south? >> on the one hand, you have 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 and 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, and i think that 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 dixie krats and the southerners to say i understand who you are. we've got to change. >> so the '64 civil rights act is passed and the '65 fair housing act is passed, as well

and lyndon johnson is probably the most important person for those acts that passed and he was an indispensable person. >> i think it is a combination of lyndon johnson's political acumen and the pressures put on by the civil rights movement. i think that 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 rides that wave. so if someone is here today, 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 was it dealt with by the constitutional amendments and what books would you recommend

for people to read. >> anything by taylor branch gives you a sense -- >> taylor branch wrote a three-volume book on the civil rights revolution which won the pulitzer prize. >> and i think that one of the best books to understand sort of race in the 19th century is david blight's biography of frederick douglas. >> he also won the pulitzer prize. >> there another book that hasn't won the pulitzer prize, which is your book. [ applause ] >> i highly recommend that book and that's available on amazon and anywhere else anybody might want to buy it or at the smithsonian? >> i would never champion my own book, but it's on amazon and it's also audiobook. [ laughter ] >> before we wrap up, you have given your professional career to causes related to civil

rights and slavery and the knowledge of slavery and the african-american museum and you didn't go into private equity or something more noble than what you've done and how did you come to this career as opposed to something more important like hedge funds, private equity or start-ups. >> every time i need to put a new roof on the house i wonder that question. i'm lucky. i grew up in a family that valued education and for me, i remember growing up in a town that was very few african-americans, and there were people that treatsed me horribly and other people that treated me fairly, and i couldn't understand why, and i remember thinking talking to my parents that maybe if you read history you'll understand a little bit about these interactions and so ultimately me to understand myself and then it became a way for me to think, here is an amazing tool that

could help a country be made better. here is something that if people understood more about their past, their expectations and their hopes. it could change the country for the better. >> you've told the story before and you might 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 wouldn't stop at certain places, but ultima7 ét;ñ he wou take you to the smithsonian. >> why was that? >> what happened was during the mid mid-'60s and it was the centennial of the civil war and i was fascinated by it and one day i drove from new jersey to visit my mother's family and i suddenly saw these museums in petersburg and richmond and i would say to my dad, oh, can we stop at the museum of the con fed confederacy and he never

stopped and i thought i'll plan this and give him plenty of warning and 20 more miles to the museum and he would keep going and normally he would drive straight to new jersey and instead, he pulled into washington and pulled into the smithsonian, in front of what is the museum of american history today. he said here is the place you can learn about the 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 and a place where a young kid couldn't learn stories in some places, but the smithsonian always gave him the opportunity so i feel humbled to be a part of the smithsonian. [ applause ] >> i was the co-chairman of the search committee that

selected -- unanimously, unanimously, and one of the great things about lonnie having been 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 she think you should take that job? >> well, it was the first time my mother said to me i guess a history degree was okay. [ laughter ] >> lonnie, i want to thank you for what you've done for our country. thank you for what you've done for the smithsonian and tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much -- >> i want to know can i get a

hedge fund? >> thank you very much to dr. lonnie bunch and dr. rubenstein, in addition to the bookses recommended i would like to invite everyone to white house history.org where there is a treasure trove of the enslaved of the decatur house and those who built the white house and those enslaved to the early american presidents at the white house. thank you all for being here and thank you for your support of our historic mission. thank you. how are you? good to see you. >> how are you? [ applause ] >> weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight, we look at law in the courts from our history bookshelves series, legal scholar cara robertson examines

the 1893 murder trial of lizzie borden. the case received international attention as ms. borden was charged with murdering her father and stepmother. the trial took place in falls river, massachusetts. that's tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. >> you're watching american history tv every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past and explore american history tv on c-span3, created by america's cable television companies and tonight we're brought by these television companies who provide it to vowers as a public service. >> up next, a look at the district of columbia compensated emancipation act of april 16,