. >> i want to salute john doar. there were a lot of brave people that i saw here, mostly black because they were really on the front lines. but tin jackson that day was th bravest thing i ever saw a human being do. john and i were having lunch. the temperature were 103 degrees. the demonstrations had gone on for several days with no emotional outlet, no way for black people to get this terrible feeling of despair, torment and anger and depression out of their head, and there came this moment out in the middle of the street where there were about 300 mississippi highway patrolmen with repeating rifles poised against down at the other end of the street, after a formal demonstration. there was this moment when young blacks gathered at the end of the street and began throwing rocks. and we heard this noise from where we were having lunch and jumped up and ran down there, and by the time we got there, certainly there was in the air that absolutely electric feeling that we by this time had all come to recognize. that elec

. >> john doar, when you think back about your life and your involvement in public service, what's the first memory that comes to mind? >> the time i worked in the civil rights division. >> in the justice department. >> in the justice department. >> and why? >> well, because i had the opportunity, it was a great chance to work on a very important problem in american government. we had a situation in the '60s where really we didn't have an honest system of self-government. and through the efforts of the -- everybody in the country, including the civil rights division, the voting rights act, came in 1965, and the power of that act has been established last november 4th when for the first time really every citizen in the united states voted or had the opportunity to vote freely. that was a great thing. >> what was your reaction when barack obama was elected president? >> well, i was -- it was just so rewarding because i think back what the situation was when i arrived in washington in 1960. countless black citizens in the south couldn't vote. they were second-class citizens from cradle to

. >> john doar, we are out of time. and i thank you. >> thank you. >> for a dvd copy of this program call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at qanda.org. "q and a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >>> each week americ"american h t tv"'s "american artifacts" takes viewers to archives, museums and historic sites around the country. the smithsonian museum of african-american history and culture will open a new building off the national mall in 2015. "american history tv" spoke to lonnie bunch, the new director of the facility. we spoke to him in a washington, d.c., suburb where he shows us the artifacts that will be on display in the new building. >> right now we are in the offices of the national museum of the african-american history and culture. this is where my staff and i will be until the museum opens in 2015. 6 years ago i started with a staff of two, no place to know for sure where the museum was going to be, no sense of what the building wo

even in silicon valley, if you were to talk to a john doar or somebody doing the green investing, there'ssses where you want some kind of subsidy or -- >> for example, in the part of the stimulus program had some moneys for battery, battery production, u.s. battery potential. in terms of the global production -- >> but now it's a huge cost and they are going out of business, too. >> we needed to do the batteries thing because -- >> there was the huge glut of batteries that we had. >> you are talking about two different things, though. the idea of being a venture capitalist and picking the companies that can be a winner, is a little different than seeing i would like to see alternative energy and give tax credits. >> both sides point to the internet or whatever. but if you ask steve jobs how much does the government have to do with apple success, he would probably say less than zero. >> and i would argue that he's not measuring the impact of the internet. right? >> and you're probably overstating, you know, the ways -- >> itunes would not work, my friend, without the internet. >> all right