we have a button right here, ron dellums, our congressman. clearly this is from a reelection campaign of his. at that point he had already begun some of the most interesting things he was doing and the ways he operated within the house, right? >> dellums is elected to congress in the 1970s election. comes into the house in 1971. he is a veteran. he had run on an anti-war movement, running against the war in vietnam. he represents berkeley, california, which has a strong anti-war constituency. and he wants to get on committees where he can begin to affect military policy. he begins a lobby to get on to the military armed services committee. he is also a member of the congressional black caucus in 1971. and he uses the caucus to help move into a position where he can get on armed services. and one of the stories that he told us in an oral history interview was going to speaker of the house carl albert and appealing to speaker al a bert to put him on armed services. and this was in effect going around the committee chairman who was a southern di

and each and every one of these from an object like ron dellums "our congressman" that is just text on a background to something that is far grander like a portrait or a picture of shirley chisholm on the cover of a magazine. each of these is putting a little bit of a human face on the history of the house of representatives. and it makes the institution just that much more accessible to all of us so that we can really get a sense of who were these people? who were the people who represent us, who counts in american democracy, and what is our role in it too. >> the history of african americans in congress is an important one for us to preserve and tell. it tells us, really tells us the story at two different levels. one of them is the history of our institution, and some of the dynamic people who have been a part of it. some of the unique personalities. and also how our institution evolved as african americans became part of that. and it's in that perspective too that the other story that is being told here is the one of the african american experience nationally post civil war, from r