tavis: goodvening from los anges, tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with filmker ken burns. beginning ptember 27, ken burns unveils his latest documentary about the national rks. if focus on the ideas and individual that helpedreate some of america's greatest national treasures. next, he will have a lo at seball. ken burns, cing up right now >> there areo many things that wal-martis looking forward to dog, like helping people live

beer. but mostly, we are looking for two boeing strong relationips. becae of your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proem supports tavismiley. tavis and nationwide insurance, working to improve fincial literacy and econoc empowerment at comes with it. and by contritions to your pbstations froviewers like you. thank you. ♪ tas: alws please to welcome ken burnso this program. through th course ofis brillit career he has become one of the great storellers in history with projects like jazzbaseball camera and

unforgivable -- basebal and unforgivablelackness. his lest docuntary focuses on the ste prks and premiere septber 27 right here on tv pbs. >>hey are a treasure house of nature super, 84 million acres of the most stunning landscapes anyone has ever seen. including a mntain so massive it creat its own weather. w's peak rises more tn 20,000eet above sea level. the highespoint on the ntinent. >> can -- tavis: ken burns joins us from new york great to have u back o this program. >> thank you, great to be wit you. i have tavis: a chance toee some of this and it is phenomenal -- tavis: i had the chance to s some of this and

it is phenomenal. once again y haveone it, my friend the> it is t a travelogue. it iabout ias and individuals. i thi that is what mes it different from other things about thnational parks. it is not even recmendation as fars which lodge or inn tuesday accurate --o stay out. tavis: let me focuson the obvious, which is this title, "the national park amera's best idea." i kw there will be conversation kicng up ju around that the stitle. america's best idea, mr. bur? >> yes, well we can get up in r first few minutes of the film. wlace said it was thebest idea that we had ever had and mediately someone comes out and says, is not the best idea. the best idea comes from thomas jeffson when all men are

created equal. but whenyou set a country in motion with those ideals ahead of you, at least, and mr. jferson did n see the contractions and hypocrisy in the fact that as hwrote those words he owned 100 human bein. but as you s in motn a countryedicated to that, you would beard-pressed to find a better idea, oat least an expression. çbut weould like to think that naonal parks are the expression of the declarati of indendence appli to the landscape. becau for the first time in man hiory, landwas set aside not for kings or noblemen othe very rich, t for everybody and for all time. it isan utterly democrac impulse and itomes out of fresh opportunities here o this, at these, apparely virg continent we have inherited. his garden of edenhat thomas jefferson himsf thought would take hundreds of generations to fill up. butery quickly, fourr five,

d we are in nger of losing t animalsthat occupy these places. someone goes against the inquitive and extractive and some would say, rapacious pace of pgress andays, we will save these places. it is not enough to look at everyiver and beautiful snd of trees and think, board feet. it is not enoh to look at the landscapand wonder what minels can be eracted. what can we save? what kind of residue of the garden of eden cou we have? this is in some ways and spiritual. its easier to worship god in cathedrals in nate than thos made by the hand of manwhich s the european tradition that weere trying to escape the specific gavity of. >tavis: i can hear people saying, here goes ken bur, he wants to spin this conversation about conservation. he was to spin this conversationbout the

environment and the nt he will be talng about global warming and thtrees. this conversation is notbout spiritualism. it is about conservation. u ought toust come out and say it. >> you know whatpart of it is paid is -- the impulse is spiritlism and then moves to coervation. and inhe teddy roosevelt tradion, it moves to patriotm. when we sing "my countr 'tis thee" we are t talking about lofty skyscrers. we are talking about the this nd. these places are the econom pipeline andhe resources that we may have extracted and have long disappeared. and then more recently -- and thatis not our province because we are history -- it has moved into ecolocal and environmental issues. no, we want to tell you a story. we want to introduce u to 50 or so han beings, most of om

you haveever heard of. of course, yohave heard of teddy roosevelt and john ir, the greatilderness profit and john d. rockefell -- john d. rockefeller jr. and to -- who was devoted to good will. but this a story of black a brown d andd yellow and female as muc as it a story of well-own white guys. tavis: tell me about sheldo johnso >> we met sheldon johnson we were filming this film. he is a park ranger right now stationed at yosemite and he is african-amerin. he is the only african-ameran ranger in th sierra neda. he interprets the lite-known story of the african-american buffalo sdiers, t celebrated cavalrymen who were in the first

decade of the thentury the parks protecto in the sequah and yosemite nationapark's, two the earliest national parks. it is an intereing little known phenomena, but if you go bacand remember that, of cours more aican-americans are lyhed in the fst decades ofthe 20th century than any other ti in our history, you begin to understd what a challenging and interesting story it therefore beces if people are telling you how to behave in national park an most of those cavalryme are, how should we say, overseeing our weitz, it makes, as sheon johnson said, a very inresting day. he not only brings alive the ory of the buffalo soiers, which is wonderful, but as shall be put in the sry like buck o'neiln beball, like wynton rsalis with ja, like ck johnson, he ts itut of the park when we go ofthe qutions that are specific to that and that is the great glory

of americahistory. as long as yopigeonhole people, segregate them to their area you are not doing anyone any favors. sheln johnson knows howo talkç about the buffalo soldie, but moreimportantly, he knows how to talk about theational park there are too many communies in our counthat do not yet feel and ownership of the pas, and it is quite often inner-city afran-americans. sldon comes from inner-city detroit. are also a aispanic americans. -- or also hispanic amicans. our outreach has sent to many cities a i can show these ks, these schools, the folks in these communities heroes that look and sound like them, heroe of the national parks that are as importantas anybody else that the great bottom up democratic story, the bigger arc of the story of the national pas. >> there are number -- tavis: there are a number ofreat parks where i live in

california. i workut -- i do my work out outside at a park called kenny hahn. there e other parks arounthe ci that i have run tough. but at this e to the park,i noticed one day that the psons th are now taking advantage of whatthe parks ofer, the water and the hills, thelaces for pickney at -- picnicking, etc. tend not be right but african-american and hspanic. i did my informal research before my cversation withyou and is onef the last vestig in the countryhere you do not have to send a lot of money to get in, where you a next to god, there is nature, kids ca run arnd and the rangers are there to protec you d your kids arnot going to get harmed, etc. contextuale that for me wth regard t these theories you have? >> you have said it better than anyone could. i was just in yosemite anwe

went to bridlevale falls a there was a little 4ear-old hispan girl. she did not kn where she was. she was just raising up to this ple. i was in tears. shwas probably fom the central vall. it is cheap now. the national parks tive during our great depression not justecause of the nw deal. the civilianonservation corps set up 10 cans within three months, eloying thounds of young men sending money ck to the americans ande could not get a ailer to katrina victs, let's remember that. it is about idividual experien. let's forget about the spitualism, ecology, patriotm. when we go to a national park -- and you felt this to- you are cler to something bigger than yourself this the paradox.

as you submit yourself, y perceive yourself, your insignificant, that makes you bigger, just as the egist among us is a diminished by hior her regard. and when you percee your co ownersp of these parks, man, you and i own the grandest canyon on earth. how lucky are w tavis: and yetwhen we think of the parks, we have not thought of them as being own by everyone ofs, includg people of colo we tend to think of them as a preser, a whollowned subsidiar o the white america. >> that has been the case from the very beginning. theeople that came to the parks were the very rich from the east. they were the travelers by railroad, the first promotersof the rks. they got the cross-country to g and the hotel then the automobileame ang

and it gotemocratized. the depression came along and was about desegregated a lot of those jim-crow facilities in the naonal parks and begano steadilyrode changes that w had be waiting a long time for. wha happened ishat people who are aware of that vy powerfu sense of co ownership, that it does not matter whether you are a biionaire or whether you are changing the beds at theotel just outsi the park, you own that park. your eco-honor and all u have too there as a co-owners to gon there and take care of it. all we need is a bitore money say some people with inquisitive interest. but man, it is ours and when youook around at th gsers or even at an historical site,ç we hav had the presence mind as a country to eve of this idea.

just as omas jfersonsaid all men are equal we mean i with mint ancolor can -- we mean when in, and color, a handicapped and so, too, the national par set aside natural scenery. evolved into mplex archaeologal site of the native americans before us. and it got into historical battlefields. the sctacular everglades turns outo be one of the most divse environmenton earth. then we save sla cabin -- slave cabins. we have the area where the japanese america were interned during world wari shamefully. t planes f the indians we mascred by united states soldiers. we have saved martin luther

king's boyhood home we have got the statute on not rushmore, but we have been a complex enough country to hail to logical historybut also complex cultural, and historic, and now ethgraphicpast tht says we i unrstand our history and at what will make of things better. oklahoma citythe side of the greatest domestic terrosm event. i mea it is a great system. i will argue on that great idea. and tavis: and so you have. i want to owhow much yo paid bara obama to go to two parks this summer with his kids >> you know, i bumped int him and said, we e going tohe national park --nd he said,

we're gog to the national rks. i said, i heard and we are so pleased. he had his daughters look at the films and now they have become junior rangers. we ae at an existential ment ithe united states, myriend. and existentialism as a brie conversation as the tension between being an doing the world our children live in is neater. we know about nure defit disorder. i've lived in a suburb of duch -- growing up and i would pe out of the hou at 8:00 a.m. and come back when theinner call cam noeveryone sits in tir room al day and a text and cannot stay off of their faceok accots, whatever. we are starved for at lationship of sething bigger. i hopehat e president goi as he did,y those girls getting involved as they did, thathe rest of us can b reminded that all those toys ll be there when we get back, but will make lasting memories. my grandmother tk my daddy, my

day took me, and i have taken my three gis to the national rks. that is at we will remember each other not inthe quotidian moments of getting uand going to work, but in the special moments of getting out in nature where we are reminded of our atomic a and significance and in thatgreat way thathe parks' work, made bettebecause of th. tavis: is sill tt weave a generation of kidwho think thatarks are boring. it is true, and as soon as you get them t you have total converts. we sent an african-american family into the everglades. at was a traditional ace that african- american familiesid not go i met th mother and she said, i cannot wait to g bac. ere's always a resistancto

somethi new, particularly when we got al o theseistractions in front of us. but i have never had somedy not be tranormed b time out of t national parks. mebody once said that people who are bored the view of the and canyon will be disappointed on the day of judgment. [laughter] tavii read a quot from you somewhere relative tohis wonderful sies where you said that parks are good places for iphanies. whatid you mean that>> it goes back to what we've been talking out you std out on the river and you haveç that carving that is 1.7 blion years old, nearl half the age the plat and if i'm lucky i ge "fourscore -- i get fourscore, 8years.

i get open upper to all this -- i did open u to relationsh, to all things. every sile one of the pple that we introduced you to hava moment like at. there was someone or couple people or anassociation who got togethernd devoted their lives antheir fortune and sacred honor to saving it, but at the heart of that was that personal tnsformation. everne we terviewed over the st 10 yea had their own experience like that. most of us who worked on the series know how bad momt at you feel that you are openedp, you have this trnsformation, whatever you nt to call it. you can call it a religion, scnce, art -- whatever it was, something was transformed. my molecule's re rearranged. i pinch myse. i'm getng paido stand out here got up at 3:00 a.m. wth all

of this equipment d i'm waitinfor the sun to come up at the acadia national park were the first light on amera hits at the landspe every day or the first ligh on volcanoes and the law comes outnd makes the ivan just a bit bigger every day. therare very few places and makesthe island just a bit bier every y. there are ve few places where new land is bein cread. thdry tortugas, i mean, just in the natural aspt of th parks, unbelvable. vis: i know at you lostne of your mar funders, and still you gothis thing done. te me about how you d th. >> gener motors, which had been funding us sinc1987 -- we signed a 10-year deal in 19, so wknew that because of the financial crisis in009 that it wod be over we had aeady replaced them with ban of aerica and we had gotten ts of otherfounders --

saunrs, the national park foundation, the cooration for public broadcasting, the pew charitable trust it was not easy buover a f years we accumuted their support. t it takes a lot to fi at the northern gate alaska and thdry tortugas up to the floridaeyes and the acadia, maine and everywhere in tween. but anybody cango shoot tt and get beautil pictus in those places. they lo exactly the way john deere saw them and the weht of the ancests of th nativ americans who once called them home -- and away the ancestor of the native amecans who once caed them home did 10,000 yes ago. but you have to tell t story. it wil not matter less you collect tose stories. theove and the energy that went into th was trying to ave together like a russian novel. it was not set against a backdrop of a tastrophic war,

but these beautiful place tavis, that just knock your socks off. you stand there and just cannot imagine that the next place is ing to be a better than the one beforend suddenly you see a new vieand somethin specific like lichen o iraq or glacier in july or -- liken on a rock a glacier in july or grizzly bears. we have still been able t enge those this that we have en doing. the diversity in this film is notpolitically correct. it is naturally a current trade -- naturally occurring. tavis: i can filyour passio and know the viewers at home can fi your passion as wel -- el your passion as well. you never know where you are giving and, furthermore, yo never know who is receing. t long ago we had this great

iconic artist named prinz, a guy you may haveeard of, was on this program for two nights and shared with dust for the house -- shared with us for the first time publicly about his childhoo but his tire two ghts wasuilt around unforgivable blackness do not know if you saw this, but the cat -- kt coming back to that. i wasç like, this is prinz talking abo a ken burns documentary your stu and that toucs people in a myriad of ways. i wa to say thank you for coming down. that is so kind, tavis. ias talking to auy in the airport that wa headed for an mba and a changed his mind. he sd, i probablyould make more money sting with anba, but i el so rich making the decision that i made. i nt to thank you. think, , my god, why e we not hear exceptor those

moments? -- where are we here eept for those monts? whether it is prince teacng abt american history, ich is for most kids, castor oil, the the subjects that we tackle, i than you for that kind comment. tavis: th national parks from america's besidea. now that i am at the end of that conversation you mit be right about at comment. aughter] you will be able to e it on pbs "the national rks, america's best idea" produced by the one andnly ken burns. that is our show for tonight. you can acss our podcast at pbs.org. goodnight, l., thanks for watchi and as always, keep the

faith. >> it is the presvation of the scenery,f the forests,nd the wilderss game or the people as a whe instead of leaving the enjoyment theof to be confined the very rich. it is noteworthy in it essentials democracy, one of the best bitf national achievement which our people have to their credit and all pele should see to it that they are preserved for their children andheir children's children forever. with their mestic beay. theodore roosevelt >> for more information on tod's show, visit tavis smiley at pbsrg. tavis: in me next timeor a conversation with ted kennedy jr. and that is next time. we will see you then.

>> the are so many thin that wal-mart i lookingorward to doing,ike helpin people live better. but mostly, we are looking forward to building ionships because with your help, the best i yet to come. >> nationwide inrance probably suorts tavis sley. tavis and nationwide insuranc working to improve financial literacy and the econoc emwerment that comes with it. >> and by ctributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ank you. ♪