it does say, the only limit to a man's hope for happiness and for the future of his children shall be his own ability. it does say that there are those, who are equal before god, shall now, also, be equal in the polling booths and the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels and restaurants and movie theaters. and other places that provide service to the public. i am taking steps to implement the law, under my constitutional obligation. to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. >> follow us on social media at c-span history for more this day in history clips and posts. coming up next. lonnie bunch, secretary of the smithsonian institution and documentary filmmaker, ken burns, discuss the complex challenge of telling america's

story. joined by pbs news hour's amna nawaz. clifford geerts once said that culture is the st anthropologist clifford garretts once said that culture is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. what are those stories in the united states? how have they been shaped and told, sustained and valued? and by whom? and how do they affect our cultural memory and our future? this afternoon, we have an extraordinary group of three people who will engage in those questions and others. lonnie bunch is the 14th secretary of the smithsonian, the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. and he is the founding director of the smithsonian's national museum of african-american history and culture which has attracted over-4 million

visitors and has become a pilgrimage for so manufacture us. ken burns is one of the preeminent documentary filmmakers of our time. his work crisscrosses american life from the brooklyn bridge to baseball to jazz to the civil war. to country music. and today's moderator is amna or as we think of her in our house and as i told her, she is the thoughtful and informed soundtrack to our evening, every single evening. she is the senior national correspondent and primary-substitute anchor for pbs's news hour. a former-foreign correspondent, her reporting also includes education and politics, sports and culture. and now, i am going to turn it over to you. thank you so much. >> melody, thank you so much for that very kind introduction. i have to say i think my kids would disagree. they have a different nickname for me, in this household. i'm more of sort of a nagging, annoying soundtrack to their

lives but i am so pleased to be here today. i want to thank everyone out there for joining us. both, on this webinar and on the webcast. and i am just honored and delighted to be in conversation, both, with ken burns and with secretary lonnie bunch. thank you so much, both, for being here. secretary bunch, how are you doing today? >> i am always doing well, especially when i get to hang out with ken burns. >> i love this new pairing, by the way. ken burns, how are you today? i want to make sure i can hear you. >> i'm great but do i have to say mr. secretary the whole time? friend of mine for so long. i have to say it. >> i'm just some guy from jersey trying to make it in the big city. >> just a yankee fan from jersey named lonnie. yeah. >> absolutely. >> we're going to get into the sports rivalries, a little bit later. okay? that's going to be saved for the q&a portion of this. and, just a reminder to everyone out there, who is watching on the webinar. you can submit your questions, at any time. just click on the q&a button at the bottom. don't use the raise-your-hand or

chat function. click q&a. submit your questions, we will try to work them in. so, gentlemen, the title of this conversation is "history is now." and we are sitting here talking, by the way, as the second impeachment trial of the former president is unfolding, on very weird, split-screen moment in all our lives. it's undoubted that we are living through historic times but i really want to talk, today, about how we frame our history. what parts of our history we choose to hang onto. the artifacts of that historical narrative. and how this story of america came to be what it is today and where it goes from here, which is a dangerous question, i know. but let's just start with some definitions. and secretary bunch, i want to start with you. this idea of cultural memory. right? of america's story, as we've all come to know it and learn it over the years. what is the role of an institution like the smithsonian, right? what is the role of an

institution like that in helping to craft that cultural memory of who america is? >> well, i think you framed it exactly right. that we know that history is as much about today and tomorrow is as it is about yesterday. and so, in many ways, what institutions like the smithsonian are about are they are helping people understand that culture, that history, is the glue that holds a country together. and part of our job is to find that right tension, between history driven by scholarship and research and memory. a collective memory that people bring to an idea. so for me, what i love the fact is that, in america, our cultural memory is a kind of changing mosaic. and because it's a changing mosaic, it means there are often debates and discussions and disagreements. but in a way, the goal is to create a memory that allows people to be able to do something i think is really important. and that is to embrace ambiguity. too often, our search for memory

is here's the simple answer to complex questions. i think the job of people, like ken and i, is to help the public understand the complexity, the nuance, and be comfortable with the debates and discussions. >> ken, what about that idea? ambiguity, i should say, you know, for storytellers, that's not a great guidepost, right? you are looking for clarity. you are looking for a linear narrative, in some cases. what about you? how do you approach this idea? >> as the son of an anthropologist, it's the stories that we tell ourselves. but lonnie is right. the only way do it. that is inherent in everything. it is lawful. it's only the forms of our storytelling that, periodically, suggest that it should be one thing or another. the binariness of our computer world. the -- the sort of dialectic of our superficial politics meaning red state or blau state. what we know from human experience is it is much more complex and much more dynamic.

changing, as lonnie suggests. that's lawful. we are always going to do this. so the dna of all of this is memory. and memory is, itself, fragile and not, yet, a thing. the dna is not, yet, a thing. it has to combine and recombine in interviewing a

sharecropper on a rice plantation and talking about history and slavery. and he said to me, i'm not really sure what a historian does. but if you do your job right, your job is to help the public understand and remember not just what it wants to remember. but what it needs to remember. >> right. >> and i think that tension is really what we are seeing. which is to help people recognize that it's not -- as ken said, it's not a simple yes or no. it's really the shades of gray that help us understand the history and helps understand ourselves. >> there is another element of tension to a lot of this, right? which is as you mention, you go back and you are interviewing people about their memories and their firsthand accounts. there are the memories that people hold onto. which are, themselves, sort of fragile and -- and biased and narrow, maybe, in their own way. and then, there is evidence and facts that you can uncover through some of that academia and scholarship and so on. when those two come into conflict with each other, how do you balance that? i mean, do you put less weight

on the memories in some way? because you have got some contradicting or conflicting facts ahead of you? >> i can give you something very specific from a film that i have worked on. i mean, first thing i'd say is reagan quoting the old-russian proverb, trust but verify. you know what i mean? we want to collect evidence but you, also, want to have a vessel of narrative that is able to tolerate these contradictions. in my jazz film said sometimes the thing and the opposite of a thing are true, at the same time. now, he was talking about the degrading nature but it also represented a white curiosity about black culture. how do you dance? how do you make love? where do you eat? where do you live? where do you sleep? all these questions and the only way you could even deal with the horrible feeling of what you had done to african-americans was to degrade it and make it base. but it was one thing and the other. so we made a film on the second

world war and wed and going in, to the various service men and women we talked to that we wouldn't talk to them unless they gave access to their official-military record, right? so then, we would operate within the confines. if they told us they were up in the air and fighting over europe in a plane on this date. we could verify that. right? and then, we had to look them in the eye to understand that basic-human thing that we all do. which is, the fish gets bigger, the farther away from the lake you get. the idea that, maybe, your role a a little bit. so, we sometimes just make gut judgments. you know what? he's great here. but here, i can't go this far with him or her or whatever it is. so i think there's a -- a sense of a continual testing and retesting. but again, you are accumulating all of this stuff. and -- and history ain't nothing, but the memories of sharecroppers added to the memories of factory workers, added to the memories of here. added to the memory of a

reporter who thought he heard it right or she heard it right. and then, you know, that's what -- i mean, when we say this is verified. for you, as a journalist, you are saying that you have got at least two different, you know, sources, at least. and you want to have more than that. but even those sources have certain agendas and things they may want you to have. and so, all of a sudden, we've -- we've become part of a human compact about trust. but also, verification. >> and i -- and i think the notion that is so powerful, to me, is i think history is at its best when it finds that tension between history and memory. >> right. >> when you recognize that, as a historian, i was trained to be distant from my subject. but i realize i became a better historian when i began to work with the living community. when i revelled in their memories. when their memories shaped the rough edges of histories, made it a little smoother. but then, the other side is to bring the scholarship and the

evidence because you're in search of clarity. sometimes, even truth. and so, i think the key is to really marry those together but recognize that it's the accuracy, it's the scholarship, that is the engine of all that i try to do. >> that's right. >> we are getting some great questions coming in relate today this. this is clearly hitting a note with our audience. secretary bunch, one of the audience members is asking how can we trust what's written about historical events? really along the lines of if, you know, if winners record history. if the victors are the ones who dictate what gets kept in our history and not. how do we trust that history is written without any kind of bias? what would you say to that? >> i would argue that you are absolutely right. early in my career, most of the history that i read, that i was trained by, didn't tell the stories that i wanted to hear. it didn't embrace the full diversity of the nation. but i would argue that, today, there's much more good history or more complicated history.

so that you can really begin to trust the stuff written by good scholars. i think the challenge is that there's so much history that you can get online, through other places. and so, the challenge is to find those sources like a ken burns film, like a smithsonian exhibition. like a book by a great scholar from yale. those are the things that you can count on. so i do think that you can find closer to the truth, as long as you understand that history is always gonna evolve and it's always going to be changing. and there's going to be new discoveries based on evidence, based on new interpretation. >> and i would add, if i may, that this notion that history's written by the victors is lovely but definitely not true. and it's mostly not true in the united states because the north won the civil war. but the south wrote the history of the civil war. birth of a nation and gone with the wind postulate that a homegrown-terrorist operation/organization, like al

qaeda, or isis, were actually the heroes of a post-civil-war moment. when, in fact, the exact opposite is true and it's taken us generations to undo that and to begin to include other, competing narratives. and the -- the loudest voice in all of this is not the truth or the complicated narrative. but you're taking our history away. >> right. >> well, so, this is a related question. that i wasn't planning on getting to until later but you guys really are digging into it so let's keep going on this thread right now. this idea of the lost cause. you said it took generations to be able to move past that, even to challenge that. when you look back at american history and the narrative we have held onto, why is that? why was that clung so tightly to? and not challenged sooner? >> well, i think, in some ways, it's clear that the north won the war but they lost the peace. they lost that narrative. and so, it was a conscious

effort. it wasn't -- it didn't just happen. there were groups that worked on how do we celebrate the lost cause? how do we, as we try to bring the country together, let's not focus on slavery. or the african-americans because they're complicated. >> yeah. >> let's find the simple answer. the simple answer. brother versus brother. and that, in essence, what we were doing was seeing fighting for the whiteness of america, from both points of view. and therefore, coming together, not grappling with the issue of slavery. allowed people to create these myths that allowed people to come together. for me, one of the most powerful and really painful images are those images 50 years after the war. when you see old yankees and old rebels shaking hands. the war is over. and yet, you never see an african-american. you never see any of the 200,000 african-americans that fought in the war. you never saw the african-americans, who in some ways, challenged the nation to live up to its ideals, rather

than follow the kind of discrimination and hatred that came out of the lost cause. >> lonnie is absolutely right. the north is completely complicit with the version of the lost cause that went and a lot of it is because it was just easier to perpetuate the simplicity of the brother against is because it was just easier to perpetuate the simplicity of the brother against brother now we've come together and to move on, let's not forget, and in particular as we're debating as today. was born in a schoolhouse in ripon, wisconsin, in 1854, out of the ashes of the wig party with wig party with one central thing and only one thing. the liberation of african slaves in america. and we've gotten a long way from that, brothers and sisters and that's a pretty interesting american journey that's complicated and i would just refer, ronny, my dear

friend to our civil war film in which in addition to all other real nurse at gettysburg, we found every ounce of black troops that were there and included them. because that's exactly what happened. and why at the end of our film, the civil war still going on and regrettably, it can still be lost. >> i think that the example of how the work you do, the work scholars to really changes the narrative. it really is saying, let us find the things that have been neglected, because they were there, but they weren't deemed important enough to talk about. and he takes gifted people to say, let me complicate this. let me bring scholars that will help us understand. and in essence, but we're really trying to say is, it's really about the complexity and the nuance and i always think that the most important contribution i can never make has to help

people understand that there aren't simple answers to these questions. now you've got to grapple and wrestle with these as you go forward. >> you, know i've said that i have made for 40 years, i have been making films about the u. s.. but i've also been making films about us, that is to say, the two letter lower case pronoun. the intimacy of us and all the majesty and the complexity, the contradiction and even the controversy of the united states. and you have to exist -- it's a privilege to be able to operate in the kind of conscious state of unknowing that that represents and you have to be able to be there and to sit on that undertow and tolerated because otherwise, you're going to end up making the mistakes that we always tend to make, which is the side that it's one thing where neither and not often neither

or both. it's a witman-esque kind of moment, you know, do i contradict myself? i contradict myself. i contain multitudes, we contained multitudes and it is our obligation as museums and filmmakers to represent that, however message might be and for me, as a filmmaker, i see it as a lens. it's not ignoring someone's history, it's pulling back and saying, this is a greater history. look at south carolina, they're tourism now involves african american history, why? well, they were a majority black state at the time of the civil war. the south had 9 million people. 4 million of whom were owned by other people. that's an extraordinary percentage of your population that has zero interest in the lost cause, has zero interest in slavery and yet, 400 plus years, nobody even deemed to ask some

questions about what was your family like? but did your family do? let's restore this plantation, but we don't have to rebuild the slave cabins. let's just paint a picture of the antebellum south with the hanging spanish moss and we can just ignore the fact that they were emancipated when in fact, of course they weren't. they were given freedom, but that's all they were given. and maybe 40 acres animal sometimes, but you could argue that jim crow, poster collapse of reconstruction is a worst period for african americans. more african americans were lynched between then and 1920 than in the previous period because you wouldn't want to

lynch property, that had value. but once that property didn't have any value, the reason why the great migration happened is why you would have to worry every single day about her son is coming home life from school. >> one of the powerful things that comes out of cans worth, which i think i try to do, not as well as can, but it's a snowshoe of, how do you demonize history? how do you help people understand that when you're talking about the african american experience, you're talking about the quintessential americans. if you look at almost every film can is made, part of you see at the heart of, it is the african american experience that helps hold a country accountable. it's the african american history when you expander notions of liberty and freedom, our citizenship tied to the community. so, for me, part of the real challenges to help people understand that we're not talking about ancillary stories. we're talking about stories that are central -- essential and goes to how long have families been in this country and that's one of the

great strengths. >> when you put a period on that very briefly is that, this is february. our coldest and shortest month, which is where we put african american history. well, i know what's there and that's a legitimate reason why. but how could african american history not be at the burning center, not in the outer orbit of pluto or some politically correct agenda tour national narrative, but at the burning heart of who we are because we have the memories of people who have the peculiar experience of being an free in a supposedly free land. they have much more to tell us then the people who've bought hook line and sinker, the madison avenue sanitized version of our past. and so you look to their and, if you're gonna struck the surface of american history your looking for. it is there. it's kind of conscience of the nation. it's affirmation in the face of adversity in a way that teaches us perpetually, and not to the exclusion of anyone else in fact, it defines the best of who we are. >> you have raised a couple of key ideas that i want to bring together and

examine, because we are basically talking about expanding our historical narrative, making sure that it's inclusive, that the stories that were previously not told are being included and uplifted in a way they should be. there are those who say we are also revising history, erasing parts of it you can see it in the debate over confederate statues in america. we are being hosted by a uva institution. just a few years ago we saw the violent clashes in charlottesville over the removal of a confederate statue. i am curious to hear from both of you. what's the place for a confederate statue in american society today? >> let me be clear. when i helped build the national museum of african american history and culture, it was because i felt race needed to be centered in the place where the world comes to understand what it means to be an american. it also means this was an opportunity to say here are ways that this history needs to be corrected. i would argue that removing confederate

statues is not erasing history at all. helping us find a truer, more accurate history. i would argue there are some statues that ought to be preserved in museums, because they help us understand the moment we are in, but i am a big believer that if you are in search of accuracy, confederate statues help you understand history a bit, but removing them does not change or challenge our historical narrative. correctly said. >> if you go back and means test when the statue was built, you will find it was built in the 18 eighties and 18 nineties. what's happening? then reconstruction, which has come down to us as a bad period, a experiment and civil rights. the collapse was the tragedy, because in the wake, in the

absence of the post civil war, you had an extraordinary influx of ku klux klan, lynching, and jim crow laws, all enshrines by teen 98 in the constitution and plessy versus ferguson in the courts. if you say here is a representative sample of the rehab position of white supremacy, then it doesn't have a kind of organic sense of, this is my story of my people. this is my story of me deciding that you can't even enjoy the freedom that we begrudgingly gave you, and you could take the confederate flag. it's not the confederate flag. the confederate flag is a different flag. the flag that we call the confederate flag is one of many battle flags of the army of northern virginia, which was adopted by the ku klux klan.

and it went into this state, it went into the other state flags of the old confederacy after 1954. what happened in 1954? let me see, was there a supreme court decision that might have prompted some sort of individual resistance? yes, exactly right. it's not even the plague of the confederacy, it's like isis. it's like al-qaeda. it's not even the confederate flag. it's the ku klux klan's appropriation of what they thought was the confederate flag. you could make some very simple descriptions. mitch landrieu is the guy who struggled a lot and spoke to me and wynton marcellus about what to do, and did the right thing. these things are not melted down into bullets or anything. they are in museums, and we interpret. this is what this man spends his life doing. that's what we've got to do. and nothing has been erased. nothing has been erased, and the problem is that sometimes there is a tendency on the other side to want to erase and to say you can't say this anymore. we've got to continue to talk about

nathan bedford forest. do we have to name a high school after him? i don't think so. >> we should also note, it was just the past year that mississippi finally changed its flag, correct? it took a little while. i want to bring in the audience for a couple of questions we pulled together, just to get a sense of where everyone's head is and that can give us another jumping off point for the conversation. there is the idea of being included in the narratives. you will see this question pop up on the screen, and then we love to have you weigh in. so want to see a pop-up, you'll see some instructions on the bottom, so, take part in this conversation and then we can jump off of. that the question here asking is to what extent do you feel included in the narrative and the images that define american civic identities? all of these institutions, secretary bunch have been talking about, the way you remember and define your history to what extent you feel included in all of those narratives and images? it's

multiple choices, so it's either very, somewhat or not at all. go ahead and click in and i think we'll see the results pop up here as well and will just take a moment. i think we'll see those pop-up very soon. okay, so the results are overwhelmingly somewhat. secretary, when you look at these, 58% of people responded to the poll by saying they feel somewhat included in the narratives. 34% said very, only 9% said not at all. that tells me that you guys are doing your jobs pretty well. >> well, it tells me that over the last say 20 years, there's been a greater appreciation of understanding of our story. i remember receiving a letter once that somebody said that i shouldn't do work on african american history because

america's greatest strength is the ability to forget. to me, it's the ability to forget what it didn't want to talk about. and, so in a way, i think what we're seeing here are the people recognize that there is a more complicated narrative than we initially were taught. people are seeing parts of themselves in that narrative. and what i want to make sure is that the narrative really does reflect the complexity and the diversity of this nation. >> i'm the somewhat of sort of in between as it may sound, actually reflects that kind of complication that lonnie's been talking about and the sort of desire, a desire that we all have to let down that it's all very certain that it's like this. and it's not. and, so a lot of that somewhat is that i know there's a bigger story, i know that's a different story, i know that what i believe is being challenged, i know that what i believe is finally being recognized war, it's not yet

there. so you've got a whole range of people who are feeling not fully enfranchised and not fully out of it who are struggling as we are, as lonnie, is as i am and the work we do to try to figure out. i'm working on a film on the u.s. and the holocaust. what we knew and when we knew it and with the antecedents. and one of the things that we inherit in the 20th century is he a--. there's another got the same time, a poet writing close the door, we don't want those sorts of people in. guess who won? that guy. in 1924, we had an immigration bill that just shut the door and created quotas that made it impossible for refugees from europe and

particularly jewish refugees from coming into the united states, not a very comfortable image, we'd still like to say, give me a year and huddled masses to breathe free. but it's a lot more complicated than that. >> decide to of how we treat to remember our darkest chapters, this actually popping up and some of our conversation in the questions here through, some folks winning in on the debate between the 16 19 project, which of course led by hannah jones, and also the 1776 project that the trump administration had just pointed out. but this unrelated talks i want to share here with you and get you to weigh in, some folks are asking about the removal of confederate statues. this is very much an area of debate for folks. what one person saying, i don't think they should be destroyed, as they represent a part of our history, but can they somehow demonstrate the horror those people demonstrated as a reminder, instead of just glorifying those people, there's another related question saying, as far as things are concerned, i have heard it sanitizes a dark place in our history. secretary, will you make of that? >> i think it's important to realize that first of all, we definitely need to prove these facts. and that i think that like mitch and drew, like they've done in budapest, they're wonderful opportunities to put things

together because they are part of this. they've shaped a way that we think about ourselves so it's important not to lose that, but it's important to say that our goal is to find the unvarnished truth. and so, therefore, you have to have a room to be able to tell that. so you proving those, you actually say that you find other statues that replace those, that towel of fuller more complicated story. innocence, wet your release simply trying to do here is to say, that america has certain creation myths and it's important to keep those north, star letters be but let us recognize that we have a long way to get there and that in order to get their, you've got to understand or history, you have to understand the complexity, you have to understand the dark moments because only in those direct moments do you really understand the resiliency and strength. >> i agree, i think

that the grating's idea and all of this is to not have a kind of soviet, where you throw out >> i agree, i think that the everything and select a new grating's idea and all of this history as if nothing resisted is to not have a kind of and i understand why people soviet, where you throw out everything and select a new history as if nothing resisted could feel anxious about that, and i understand why people i don't think that's going on could feel anxious about that, and i don't think that's going i don't think that's going on to go on. i think more is the reactionary thing that this illegitimate part. this isn't about slavery, it's about states rights or nullification or into position or, and it's not until about slavery. if you look at the south carolina articles of secession, they do not mention states rights, they do not mission not-ification, they do not mention the other and i don't think that's going to go on. i think more is the waging congressional and reactionary thing that this illegitimate part. this isn't about slavery, it's about constitutional issues of the states rights or nullification or into position or, and it's not until about slavery. if you day. dimension slave free aloft look at the south carolina a lot and that's what murray them that they're going to take way but turned out to be their most valuable property, which are human beings they have owned in

a country that four score and five years before had proclaimed that all men are created equal. so we've got to articles of secession, they do not mention states rights, they be able to contain, and by the, way the guy who wrote that do not mission not-ification, they do not mention the other waging congressional and constitutional issues of the sentence owned more than 200 human beings. and, so we're not talking about throwing out the day. dimension slave free aloft a lot and that's what murray them that they're going to take way but turned out to be their most valuable property, which are human beings they have owned in a country that four jefferson memorial or tearing score and five years before had down monte carlo, we're not talking about moving mount vernon, a very obvious plantation or removing monte carlo a very disguised plantation, but a plantation, nonetheless, characterized that some classical who are awe. and beautiful. but we have to do the printing. i'm not suggesting going into proclaimed that all men are created equal. so we've got to be able to contain, and by the, way the guy who wrote that gettysburg, and knocking off sentence owned more than 200 all the statues of robert e. human beings. and, so we're not talking about throwing out the lee, let's leave it. there are appropriate places, nothing will be lost in the story unless we have the kind of horrific wholesale, you know, soviet style cleansing of the system and we're not about that. americans are strong enough to figure out how to tolerate the good and the bad. jefferson memorial or tearing

it's -- we've heard it in one down monticello, we're not talking about moving mount vernon, a very obvious narrow superspecial story to plantation or removing monte obtain. and it's just good to complicate it. it makes for monticello a very disguised great drama, it makes for great plantation, but a plantation, nonetheless, characterized that some classical who are awe. and beautiful. but we have to do the printing. i'm not suggesting going into gettysburg, and knocking off stories, and makes for great all the statues of robert e. lee, let's leave it. there are exhibitions. he'd go to lanita appropriate places, nothing will be lost in the story unless we have the kind of regional museum there, i mean, this is by no means a picnic. and yet, the fact that it produces these feelings and you horrific wholesale, you know, sovi style cleansing of the system and we're not about that. americans are strong enough to figure out how to tolerate the good and the bad. it's -- we've heard it in one narrow superspecial story to are amazing, our transformative obtain. and it's just good to complicate it. it makes for great drama, it makes for great stories, and makes for great exhibitions. he'd go to lanita and not just for african regional museum there, i mean, this is by no means a picnic. and yet, the fact that it produces these feelings and you are amazing, our transformative and not just for african americans, but for all of us americans, but for all of us are indebted to that museum for are indebted to that museum for reminding us, as lonnie was saying that this experience has got to be at the heart, it's reminding us, as lonnie was our original sin as historians like to say. that's the thing saying that this experience has got to be at the heart, it's our original sin as historians like to say. that's the thing we have to be opening our eyes to every day and why george floyd last year really gave us a huge opportunity, you know. it was

his third or fourth teacher in houston that he wanted to be a supreme court justice. he's achieved a horrible feat that is helping us in that area, remarkably and we can drop this moment. this is the 402 year old virus that we're dealing with. >> how much of this, we talked a lot about inclusion exclusion and revision and so on, how much of this is about re-centering conversations? look at the work that the 16 19 projected. by recent ring of history around the first arrival of the slave people here, which is not something that i could say it's a product if we lose public school, did not talk about growing up in america. that is not the history represented in a formal education can place at all. we talk today about even journalism, when you talk about

racism in the law enforcement, how about centering the role in the voices of the black law enforcement officers who have to work in that environment, rather than talking to white officers who used to be racist and now are no longer. those kinds of conversations. how much of that and especially as curating artifacts, evidence, narratives in the smithsonian. how much of that informs your work? what's at the heart and the center of the story? >> i think you put your finger on what has shaped my whole career in that is we centering race in the american discourse. we centering race in a way that, you know, in the sixties the key was just to discover that race was there. you shined the lay light, i do know that history, i do know that -- i was always sort of exotic. so for me, it saying that of the kind of many creation stories of the united states, story of the notion of us as the beacon of freedom. equally important is the story of a struggling to redefine what freedom is to make that feel more accessible to african americans, to women, to others. so, for me, the tension of being able to say, let us build on our original

creation myths, but let's resign are the stories so we have a better way of understanding who we once were, which will help us understand who really truly a baby, just maybe pointed towards a better tomorrow. it's the same but i take very strongly from african americans, some always amazed at people who believe that america, but didn't believe in them. i'm always amazed at people who believed that america would one day live up to its promise if you struggled, you challenged, you made clear with the means were and if you sacrificed. so, for me, we centering means not pushing these other stories out of the way, but saying, we can understand ourselves if we don't understand how this issue of race has shaped us all, has touched every presidential administration from washington to president biden. and in essence, we're not understanding ourselves if we

turn a blind eye to one of the key factors that makes us who we are. >> i agree. dr. king stream is not -- what is not a dream a articulated specifically for african americans. but it's about the liberation of all people. if you escape the specific gravity of the almost built-in racism in the world. certainly in this country, everybody is light and. we definitely don't want to be an enslaved person. but you definitely don't want to be a slave owner either. these things free people and unusual ways and the refraining of it, now that you're talking about is, and lonnie said so beautifully is that the heart of our survival as a country he's being willing to tolerate the increasing number of

narratives that going to what is actually us. narratives that were always about us in the u. s., but were left out in labor, women, bottom-up stories, individual oral histories, all of that stuff. i mean, american history for the longest time was a sequence of presidential administrations, white men, punctuated by wars. >> one of the things that ken does so brilliantly, and i love the term lens. because i think that what we're really trying to suggest is that you're using african american history, we are using the story of issues of gender, you're really saying, these are lenses or whether it is through the rhetoric. these are not simply lenses into a community. their it lands into a nation. i've always framed the stories is thinking about peoples

journeys through a nation story >> the both now mentioned specifically gender and the rule of women in history. we've got some great audience questions coming in so guys, please keep them coming. but let me put this question from you from the audience. someone's asking, how our institutions bringing jane crow to light, the intersectionality of racism and sexism, has there been enough conservative focus, and off of that shifting of the lines to the stories of women and racism? >> not yet, i made a film on elizabeth katie, susan b anthony and there's an extraordinary betrayal at the heart of the women's movement after the civil war. where the women were told the, you're right but we're working on this one thing and once were done will take care of you and in fact, then all of a sudden you've got a lot of right women going, okay we, want to vote but were not necessarily wanted for black men or certainly not black women land, you know, the movement of the very progressive movement against the splinter, which is always

the case. fortunately, what's is beginnihappening now is thar history is beginning to include extraordinary stories of women and women of color into the narrative and harriet tubman, you know, is just ascendant and ida b. wells will be ascendant and you will be able to hear more about the truth and people that will help put ally to so much of the conventional ways them of what american history is, so there is a huge long way to go, long way to go for women period that, i'm the father of four daughters and high don't get it every day from them, it's just, i understand a world through their eyes, and they're all very capable. but there are not a white male and that still has a kind of privileged

position that is always, you know, is one lap ahead automatically. and in every race, -- that jesse owens is not running. >> in some ways, chance your question, if i look at museums around the country, i think they're doing much better job of looking at these different stories and crossing these lines. but i still think there's so much work to be done. and as the scholarship is now at a point where we can understand what's the challenge of black man vis-à-vis black route. -- so we're getting to those stories, i'm not convinced they were given to the public in a way yet that makes them accessible, that makes them central of public's understanding, but i think we're getting there. that is the exciting thing. >> and when stacey abrams is president, and then we'll all have our lessons brought right up today, pretty much right away. >> so we are now in this historic moment, we have the first woman of color,

we have a black woman of south asian descent, occupying one of the highest office in the land. i'm asking to follow up on your statement or secretary, because i'm curious how we get there, what's incumbent upon all of us, within calm but among our institutions to make sure that those stories are included moving forward? >> i think it's important to make sure that we're helping the public understand that all we're trying to do is understand who we are as americans. it's all we're simply trying to do so that even as we explore questions that people may say, that doesn't relate to me, it does. and i think the challenge is one that people understand but there's still so much more to learn. there's them so much more to understand where history and that by understanding that, that will challenge us but that'll put us in the direction where, as the

vice president has said, that she doesn't want to be the last and so, i think the key is to make sure that we're telling these stories that allow us to open those doors. >> so we're in the business, him and i, of storytelling and i'm just reminded just novice tate meant i love putting all the list, richard powers who said the best arguments in the world won't change a single person's mind. the only thing that can do that is a good story. and if you think about it, arguments are about your wrong, i'm right. let me convinced you. stories, if done well in the american story that lonnie and i are trying to add to is one that gets increasingly bigger and more inclusive is the wrong word. it's a bigger table and there's lots of stuff on it and people don't agree and that's okay. but at the end of the day, someone feels they have a place at that table and are part of that story, from the skies the limit. there is a kind of possibility ahead of us. the problem is that we're all about dialectic, we're all about poor and make, we're all about argument. and that means

everything is just barnyard. whenever nothing in life is that binary, it just isn't. everything exists in the complicated shades of gray in between and that's where we have to operate. and it's incremental and it's sometimes steps backwards, as well as going forwards and that i think is lawful it isn't just course human beings who lie and human american history, it is interest are complicated story, it's human interaction because it is of course human beings who lie and human beings who make country conspiracies and human beings who are paranoid and human beings who have always, through all-time manipulated and promoted disinformation, which is one of the great resistance forces to just being able to expand with the history we're talking

about. >> that's the least of this idea of one singular american narrative which i wonder sometimes if it does exist because you're talking about disinformation, conspiracy theories and so on and we're seeing the proliferation, especially right now with the social media. but is also, seems like two very different conversations about who america isn't who depending on where you are in the country and what kind of community you are in. so in some places, you're having a really real complicated discussions about the place of confederate statues, how we look really rigorously at our history and other places you have conversations where we're talking about amending school textbooks to include creationism. there are very real belief systems guiding all of these conversations and we talk about complexity but sometimes, those ideas are exactly in conflict with each other. they cannot exist at the same time in the same space, right? so do we still have and can we still work towards a singular american narrative, or are we sort of at a divergent

point where there will be two, or multiple american stories, depending on who you are. the latin motto of the united states is e pluribus unum, out of many, one. it's never been one thing and it will never being one thing but the impulse towards, this is the civilized idea in which i understand where i come from, i understand what i believe, but i understand that where i come from and what i believe has to be in concert with other people who have perhaps diametrically opposed points of view. and that i wish to participate in this civilized hole, then to disintegrate into the tribal equivalent, which we all know where that leads to. it's just very bloody. and we don't need that and nobody in their right minds wants that. iced it on i

stood on the rim of the grand canyon, explaining to my doggies that the colorado river exposed pre-cambodian vision shifts, that is 1. 7 billion years old, nearly half the age of the planet itself, the woman next to me said, this earth was created 6000 years ago, and i just turn to her and i said, your years are longer than mine. you, know you just have to make room for her and room for me. and we may believe in the same od, i think we did. >> i think in many ways, we used to have a narrow, linear notion of what america was. whether it

was called -- and asked her narrative -- we've expanded a like a balloon. and my sense is that it's important to do. that were still within a framework that is american, but we're now recognizing that understand, we've got to understand rule american difference, we've got to understand gender differently and we have to recognize that maybe one day, we'll get to all these pieces and will begin to move back towards a single narrative, i believe they'll never be a single narrative. i do believe however, there is room within that room for different creation stories and that's why we try to do. >> that actually just specifically to one of the audience courses coming, in which it can we bring ourselves back to a single narrative? >> we are, not a single narrative ascent, it's called a work by richard, so that paranoid style in american politics. this stuff, you know, stuff like

this has been out there, ebbing and flowing since the beginning of the united states. since the beginning of time and i think what happens is, we tend to be chicken ladles in our own particular moment in which we, go disguise falling, the great benefit is history is it makes -- as much as you know all the dirt underneath the carpet that's been presented as american history, it also makes you kind of optimistic at the same time, because you understand that while the moment is unprecedented, the aspects of this are completely precedent it. we know that there's been this demagogue here and this demagogue there, we know when the know nothings believe this about immigration. we know all of these things that in their aggregate sort of combine to make a moment kind of like ours. i just sort of feel these things, mccarthyism died out, other things will happen. it's replaced by comedy, sometimes the civil wars and that's a terrible thing. but all in all, you know, george will sort of franklin roosevelt in our film on the roosevelts, he said that he thought franklin roosevelt saw american

history as a rising road. that's a good image to have. >> all of this, i think leads to another poll -- which is not just a roll of arts and culture institutions. maintaining a telling mark in history but also, preserving and maintaining and even strengthening our democracy. so one of the questions we've got to put everyone out there, this is who you think arts and cultural institutions have a role in strengthening democracy? you can could be, yes you can click now, we'll look at the results as they come in and i want to talk a little bit more about this and about how these institutions feed into our democratic systems and narratives as well. let's wait for a moment while those pop-up and i think we have the results. absolutely overwhelmingly yes. gentlemen, weigh in on that. especially as we look to -- i know, ken this is something that you mentioned when we spoke before this event. the role that artifact stop prism from solves right

after events, he look at the presidential takes that the center previous been going through. it was evolved or an of our democracy and history, right? >> that's really true and i bra glad you brought up the most -- because it's interesting in our film on the vietnam war, we were bending over backwards not to make kind of political judgments about people and even though after the period that our film covers both president nixon and henry kissinger would books that put their views in a different light. the tapes that the mueller center has and have listened to and it's really important to know that all of the tapes haven't been listened to our catalog or interpreted by scholars, so this is a vast ocean of potential stories and research and further complication of the american narrative, and i think that applies to lyndon johnson as well. there is just the luminous amounts. we didn't have to say anything, we could just put the tape, the

president could go on and say this in public and then that afternoon said this on the tape and, you know, it is used wonderful to have. that we live in an age of so much information then matter how many times somebody says something, we've lost our sort of ability to be outraged, which i hope we came back shortly because, things can be said so many times. but there's something about having a tape where you hear the president of the united states talking to doctor kissinger about something that they have independently and together said the exact opposite. and there's nothing a film maker has to do, you want to put your -- on the the scale, you could but you don't have to. we just

presented so that these things are really important, really important. and i have my office like shock -- shackles. they're incredibly heavy. and you just go, this speaks more then volumes of books about -- this is an instrument forced by human intelligence that has only one purpose. which is to enslave other americans and, lonnie's got all of that and it's just the accumulated weight of that. it has a kind of power to transform and rearrange or molecules and in a really positive way, so these artifacts are central to how we're going to not just fix history, that's impossible but continue to interpret and let it guide us. we sort of think the past is unknown and our history is fixed, it's the opposite. i, mean are past is as malleable as anything and our future, at least the immediate future is rather predictable. and i love the fact that our past is so malleable and each generation

rediscovers and reexamines that part of the past, it gives its present new meeting so people fall out of favor and people come back into favor, we've all seen that happen. revision-ism changes the dynamics of everything and something else is replaced, i love, even just since world war ii, the number of variations of historiography that have captured the imagination of the academy. and the radically different, lonnie knows better than me all the different permutations we've been through saying, this is the only way you can see histories through this lens and at the end of the day, telling the good story and incorporating as many of those perspectives as possible gives you the best possible access. >> i think the biggest challenge of building a national museum was all the different interpretations, trying to understand them all, trying to navigate those. but i think to your question, the notion of cultural institutions are crucially important because they are both the glue, because there are trusted places. their places where people will come and grapple with questions do choose that they want another places. i find people coming to

the smithsonian who wrestled with slavery or wrestle with climate change where they wouldn't in cleveland or in chicago but when they come to these institutions, they have trust. but it also means that these institutions have to also have courage. the courage to grapple with social justice. the courage to grapple with clarity, the courage to actually ensure that in their collections are things that allow us to tell complicated diverse stories. my frustration early in my career in a museum and the stories that i want to tell and there was nothing in stories that could help me tell those stories, so i vowed that it's crucially important for museums like the smithsonian to collect today for tomorrow. so i sent a response team to collect what was going on at the capitol on january 6th, with george floyd, it is important that without those

stories people can then say that history did not exist. the key to the work that ken and i have done is to ensure that people have an understanding of what happened before, and how they can dip into the reservoir and be transformative. >> can i put another audience question because this pivots to something i wanted to get both of you to weigh in on, academia? one of the audience members asked specifically about oral history. you mentioned you sent people out to gather all this wonderful evidence and these stories right now. this audience member is asking if there is a distinction between storytelling and oral history? where it is oral history fit into the academic model? >> first of all, there is the storytelling that's shaped by scholars that really frames the stories and questions we want to answer, and then there's oral histories that sometimes

they fit right into the scholarship and other times challenge it. other times they are not as accurate. but the reality is that when you get into the order of oral history, as an academic, you learn to ask different questions, to see things differently, and it forces you to understand what are the truths you are trying to understand. i became a better historian listening to oral histories, stories of people. sometimes they are completely accurate sometimes they are memories that are wrong, but you are made better every time you hear those stories because what they do is remind you to humanize history. they remind you that that will get people engaged, and it reminds you that there is complexity, because you are hearing different things in the oral histories, and i think that made me a better historian >> beautifully said, lonnie. i'd said earlier i thought memory was the dna, but not yet a structure. the first

structure of memory, regardless of whether it turns out an academic or other ways, is oral history. honey, how is your day is the beginning of all history. it really is and you edit. human beings at, it and in the editing is the initial subjectivity of real, actual, true human experience. but i back slowly down the driveway avoiding the garbage can at the curb is not what we say unless someone hits us and that's what we say. we are all collecting from the original oral history scholars will apply whole set of different things and they will be drawn to particulars before historiography's.

narrative was out of fashion after the second world war, and you can understand why. storytelling is really losing its edge. freud ian interpretations, marxist interpretations, symbolism, deconstruction, semiotics, all sorts of things have helped the academy learn new things, but it all goes back to being able to tell a story. the story essentially goes back to answering the question, what happened today? what was your experience today? it's an oral tradition as old as human beings and as new as this conversation right now. >> i think honey, how is your day, is a dangerous question during pandemic work from home. [laughs] >> i had a conversation earlier today in which i said white people are notoriously inept and understanding what's going on, but a pandemic, at the same time we are dealing with this racial reckoning, is a good way to understand that it has never been a problem to go to the convenience store until now, but it's always been a problem for african americans. it's not a problem to jog another neighborhoods, until now, but

it's always been a problem for african americans about whether you come home alive. in some ways, the pandemic and george floyd hit at a moment where it was possible, at least, to pry open the door. you could see it shutting real quick. people are making facile decisions about what happened, but our job as museums, filmmakers, journalists, is to keep that door open. let's not let it shot with the conventional wisdom that will gloss it over and say it's brother against brother. >> i think the pandemic, as you have told the stories, covered these, i cover them. it has also revealed to us so much more about who we are. disparities are deeper than most people believe them to be. across every single institution, while a lot of people think of the pandemic as an equalizer, it is brought

into the disparities. it's about black, latino, native american communities hardest hit, not just on the health, side but in the recession as well. i think we are at a historic moment. we say it is so often. i would love to ask each of you to reflect on, it because obviously, you deal in history, and gathering history and artifact and evidence and stories and preserving them for future generations. how are you processing this moment right now? we are probably too close to look at it with a clear eyed view. how are you viewing this moment? we have a global pandemic that we are dealing with in our own way. what is it that's standing out to you in terms of continuing to tell and preserve america's story? >> i said this was the fourth great crisis after the civil war, the depression, and world war ii, and in some ways, it may be

worse because it has brought to an existential for the very existence and continuation of the united states, and i believe, we are dealing with three viruses, this year, covid-19, which is horrific, the 402 year old virus of white supremacy and racial injustice, and the age old virus of lying and misinformation and all that stuff has reached a new boiling point. at the same time, let's also not forget what's happening. nurses, teachers, delivery people, emts, are now the most exulted positions in the country. that is a really good thing. more people voted, almost 160 million people voted, more than ever before. that's a really good thing, in the safest, most secure election we've ever had. people risk the virus, and more importantly, poll workers, people who had to

be there all day and couldn't mail in a ballot, democrat and republican, maintained an american civic order at the most basic, granular level in a great way we are having this racial reckoning. we have a woman of color as vice president, and the oldest president we've ever had facing an fdr moment, a guy who knows he has to represent everybody, including the people who didn't vote for him these are all good things that are happening and i think as much as we cannot be pollyannaish about any of these, we also can't be the opposite we cannot be consistently asking why -- >> that's a whole other conversation. i will not host a webinar on that. >> we actually have to be able to measure all of this, just as

the african american experience produced jazz music. it's the greatest expression of affirmation in the face of adversity. the blues itself is not a complaint about your condition. it is your absolute affirmation that you are going to transcend this bad situation. we always have to see this glass, however perilous it is, at least half full. that's why history makes me an optimist, despite the fact that i spent my entire life charting really bad stuff. i don't know how you feel about it, but the possibilities are as great as the threats. >> as a historian, i have always felt history makes me hopeful because i see where we were. i've seen the changes. it also reminds me that we will probably never get to the promised land of full equality, but we work towards it. for me,

it's that kind of journey. but i find at this moment is one of the parts of the smithsonian community museum, they went around and began to do oral histories, interviewing people about what does it mean. what has been wonderful is hearing people say here is what we've lost. here is where i'm sad but here is where i see this pointing us to better understanding. this is a moment of reckoning for the nation. how do we participate in that kind of moment? participating by voting, protests dig, but sharing artistic creativity to make sure moments are not lost. amazing young poets have taken us in new directions for me, this is a moment to real loss, real pain. but at the moment that's transformative, if we sees it, and that's always the question. >> what about for our

democracy? the idea about the more we look back, the more questions we may ask, the more things we may find are not necessarily as true as we believed them to be, as new evidence surfaces, as more narratives are included. does this rigorous look at our history and holding it up to the light to shake around serve to strengthen our democracy? >> of course it does. we just came off of the last, thank god, football game of the season. i love the sport, but it's over and we get a bit of unrest. if you think about it, the people who do it the best are the people who go back and look with very clear eyes, and not the great past they made, but the mistakes they made. a great country does the exact same thing. it goes into the film room and it says what can i do to be better, how do i up my

game, what do i need to do in order to not be beaten again by this team. the day before yesterday, we saw a team that was not supposed to win to a much superior team, handed to them, because they did the work. they studied and understood where they had gone wrong, and the metaphor is incredibly weak. it is an important one, though, if we are going to be better. it is socratic. we all have to know ourselves, and if you don't, if you avoid it, if you coast on the bromide's or even the negatives of the store, you are lost. you cannot do either. you have to be constantly studying the film and understanding with the most intense self criticism what you could do better.

that's the process. he doesn't say let's have an exhibition and it's out next thursday. it's out next thursday, five years from now. and i spend that long on a film, because we have to spend all that time means testing it in order to ensure it fits into what all the variety of scholarly comments, all the sense of the bottom, up as well as the top down history, the variety of artifacts we could or couldn't use. every exhibition is not 100% of the stuff they've got every one of my films is a 40th of the stuff we've got. all that is what we need to be doing as a republic, and then we will be figuring out that we are in pursuit of happiness. happiness, by the way, is not an accumulation of all objects. it was lifelong learning in a marketplace of ideas. that's what capital h. happiness was, and its pursuit, not even

happiness it will always be the road and the in -- >> i think what ken said. the truth of the matter is that is humans, we are better when we really understand ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our foibles. history allows us to do that. history allows us to find those moments where we find great pride and we look at achievement and we say here is where we want to go. but it also allows us to challenge ourselves, say here is where we clearly failed. here is where we didn't live up to our honor. it's a challenge to do just that. to me, if you don't look at your history with a clear eye and look at it candidly and have those conversations, all you are doing is living in andalusian. at some point, and illusion will hurt, you not help you. >> at the very

beginning of our conversation today, you implied something, lonnie, that's part of the pursuit of happiness. the man who wrote the second sentence of the declaration, our creed, the distillation of a century of enlightened thinking, owned other human beings and when he settled -- all white men who are property -- we don't mean that now. that is the herald of coming good, as well as the progress that has to be acknowledged, just as we refused to accept a status quo that still keeps some people behind. >> just checking questions for tom brady haters after the super bowl, but i don't see them. i'll ask you both one final question which i found in all of my interviews, it often reveals the interesting part of any conversation which, is there anything that i have not asked you about that you want to make sure that you get a chance to say today? >> are you kidding?

it is you. you made us a good -- you ask good questions, anna, we're just happen to be wholly owned subsidiaries of your great questions. >> you are both incredible gentlemen and incredible leaders. i cannot thank you enough but your time, your insight, your leadership in this space, it is an absolute pleasure. to spend this time with you, so thank you, thank you very much for that. and with that, i'm going to turn it back over to melody barnes, and there she is, thank you so much. >> you are all reminding me, yet again of why i was a history major and why i love it so so much. that was a stunning conversation. it was rich and wonderful, there are so many things that i jotted down, they won't understand ourselves if we turn a blind eye to who we are. a great country asked, what can

i do better? cultural institutions must have the courage. and i of course think that we will all take home, honey, how was your day? and that in oral history, i literally, i'm not exaggerating i have friends around the country texting me and saying that this is one of the best programs that they have seen. and for that, i want to thank you, can, lonnie, anna, you were fantastic. i want to thank your staff as well as those at the miller center, at the college life and democracy initiative. and i want to thank our audiences for such wonderful questions and blessing us this afternoon. so, thank you all so so much we are indebted to you for this conversation, and we are enriched by it. thank, you have a good afternoon. >> thank you, and go yankees! [laughs] >> i love you, brother, i love you! >> i miss you, see you soon. take care.

history professor richard bell talks about the declaration of independence its origins purpose and global significance during and after the american revolution. in one hour and 55 minutes historians discuss the lives of loyalists native americans and african americans in the aftermath of the july 4th 1776 declaration of independence. i was trained as an artist in the arctic academy of prague. after completing my schooling i worked for several years at an artist an animator for czechoslovakian films. and then the russians invaded my country.