Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Lonnie Bunch

Transcript

Lonnie Bunch · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Very special programming today featuring Lonnie Bunch, he's the fourteenth
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Secretary of the Smithsonian, and David Rubinstein, host of the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: David Rubinstein Show, a peer to peer conversations. Speaks here
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: from the Udvar Hazy Center that's part of the Smithsonian
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  Speaker 1: Museum and it's near Dallas Airport. That's right in. Rubinstein
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  Speaker 1: begins here by asking Bunch about being the first historian
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  Speaker 1: and the first black person selected as the head of
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  Speaker 1: the museum complex. Let's listen in. That's right. And I'm
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: very proud and glad to be with you today. And
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  Speaker 1: I should disclose that I was the chairman of the
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  Speaker 1: Smithsonian at one point. I'm still on the board of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, but I will ask tough questions anyway. I
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  Speaker 1: appreciate that. So, now that you've been the secretary for
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  Speaker 1: a while, um, is the job as good as you
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  Speaker 1: thought it was going to be? And you're happy you haven't.
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  Speaker 1: I think that no one knew what it was like
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to lead during a pandemic. But what has happened is
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  Speaker 1: as a result of that, I really learned the wonders
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of the Smithsonian. When it comes together, the Smithsony is
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  Speaker 1: often a conglaborative, museums and research centers um and that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't always blend. But because of this pandemic, people have
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  Speaker 1: come together, cross lines, brought their creativity scientists, historians, educators.
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  Speaker 1: So for me, I'm really glad because I'm getting to
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  Speaker 1: see what the Smithsonian does, even in the most difficult
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  Speaker 1: of times, when it comes together and brings its creativity
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  Speaker 1: to bear. How did you operate during the COVID nineteen situation?
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  Speaker 1: What did you do in terms of operating the zoo
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  Speaker 1: and all the research institutions and your nineteen museums. What
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  Speaker 1: I realized is that once we shut down the buildings,
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  Speaker 1: that I needed the Smithsonian to still be operating. So
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  Speaker 1: we really put went to everything online. We created educational opportunities,
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  Speaker 1: portals that would allow people to educators to get our science,
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  Speaker 1: our history, our art. We've made it so that scholars
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  Speaker 1: could continue to do the research, the scientists could do
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  Speaker 1: the work they needed to do. But the reality is
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  Speaker 1: that we recognize that now as a result of this virus,
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  Speaker 1: we've got to rethink so much about the Smithsonian. We've
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  Speaker 1: got to rethink about how we tell a work more effectively.
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  Speaker 1: We've got to think about once people come back. What
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  Speaker 1: does social distancing meaning a museum? Because, as you know,
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  Speaker 1: the major thing that happens in a museum is people
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  Speaker 1: who don't know each other come together around an artifact
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  Speaker 1: like the Shuttle. UM. And so are people gonna want
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  Speaker 1: to come together um in a time of pandemic? So
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  Speaker 1: we're really thinking about how do we create community even
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  Speaker 1: in with social distancing. So the Smithsonian is not yet open.
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  Speaker 1: You have two parts of it open. This museum is
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  Speaker 1: open and the National Zoo is opened, right, Um? Why
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  Speaker 1: did you open those two? First? I wanted to be
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  Speaker 1: able to figure out how do we open the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the Smithsonian. The zoo because it's outdoors, um, and
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  Speaker 1: that was easier UM. But also this museum because it's
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  Speaker 1: large and it also has parking, because there were issues
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of transportation. So basically these were the test case which
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  Speaker 1: will then if the if the virus then begins to
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  Speaker 1: go down to allow us slowly to open the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the Smithsonian. Now where did you operate from when
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  Speaker 1: COVID nineteen was prevalent, Well, be coast there were some
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: guards that had to work. I thought I would go
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  Speaker 1: into the office, but I realized that if I went
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  Speaker 1: to the office, so many other people would come in.
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  Speaker 1: So I ended up working from home and I learned
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  Speaker 1: to master zoom um and sort of other technologies I'm
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: still fighting with, but basically work from home every day now.
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  Speaker 1: Museums have been around for thousands of years, but now
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  Speaker 1: with zoom and virtual technologies, why don't we really need museums.
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  Speaker 1: Why can't you just look on the screen and see
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  Speaker 1: what you need to say? I think there is something
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  Speaker 1: powerful about the object. I mean, the fact that you
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  Speaker 1: can see the Space Shuttle um right in front of
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  Speaker 1: you is really powerful. You feel the connection. I've seen
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  Speaker 1: throughout my career people stand in front of a copy
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  Speaker 1: of the Emancipation Proclamation or Chuck Berry's candy Apple red Cadillac,
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  Speaker 1: and it stimulates conversation. So that, in essence, what we
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  Speaker 1: should do with the Smithsonian is find the right tension
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  Speaker 1: between tradition and innovation. We have to recognize that the
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  Speaker 1: traditional stuff is good and we want people to enjoy it.
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  Speaker 1: But now we also recognized it as a result of
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  Speaker 1: the pandemic, more people are comfortable receiving content digitally. So
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  Speaker 1: it really means that we just need to find the
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  Speaker 1: right balance between serving the millions that will never get
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  Speaker 1: to a museum, and the millions that actually come to
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  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian. Now, during the COVID closing of the museums,
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  Speaker 1: we had some race riots in Washington and other cities
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  Speaker 1: around the country, and reaction to the death of a
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  Speaker 1: number of people uh such as George Floyd. Um, how
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  Speaker 1: is the Smithsonian reacting to that? I thought it was
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  Speaker 1: really important to realize that in some ways, the Smithsonian
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  Speaker 1: is the glue that holds a nation together, and it's
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  Speaker 1: the kind of place that can bring people of different
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  Speaker 1: political points of view together. So when when all of
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  Speaker 1: the sort of angst and the pains happened as a
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  Speaker 1: result of the murder of George Floyd and others, I
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  Speaker 1: realized that the Smithsonian had a role to pay, that
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  Speaker 1: we should be a place that would help the public
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  Speaker 1: grapple with the things that have divided us. So one
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  Speaker 1: of the things we did was we got support from
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  Speaker 1: Bank of American created a program that looks at race,
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  Speaker 1: community and our shared future to basically say, how do
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  Speaker 1: we create town halls an opportunity for people to come
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  Speaker 1: together to talk about what is divided us? How do
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  Speaker 1: we use the resource of the Smithsonian our expertise on
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  Speaker 1: African American culture to give people the kind of historical
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  Speaker 1: guidance to help them live their lives. Now, the Smithsonian itself,
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  Speaker 1: what about the diversity in the Smithsonian workforce and your
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  Speaker 1: executives who helped run the museums. I think the Smithsonian,
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  Speaker 1: like many places, has a lot of work to do. UM.
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  Speaker 1: I'm very pleased that we've got some diverse leadership. UM,
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  Speaker 1: we've got strong, diverse, playful, and different parts of the Smithsonian.
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  Speaker 1: But I think that the Smithsonian needs to do a
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  Speaker 1: better job because if we're going to help the public
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  Speaker 1: grap with these issues, we've got to model it. Now.
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  Speaker 1: There's a story about the secretary of the Smithsonian when
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  Speaker 1: they had the Lafayette Park riots or whatever you wanna
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  Speaker 1: call them, that he was wandering around looking for artifacts
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  Speaker 1: he could pick up and take to the Smithsonian. Any
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  Speaker 1: truth of that, Old curators can't break their habits. I
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  Speaker 1: was down um at Lafayette Square talking to people looking
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: at some of the materials on the walls, collecting some
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  Speaker 1: for the Smithsonian, but really directing others, saying here's some
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  Speaker 1: stuff we should have. Well, you're walking around there and
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  Speaker 1: you're saying I'm the secretary of the Smithsonian. Can I
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  Speaker 1: have this? And the police are saying, how sure? I
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  Speaker 1: had to show my idea? Okay, so you've got you
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  Speaker 1: didn't get arrested. So what's the biggest challenge you have
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: at the Smithsonian right now other than getting ready for
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: an opening again after COVID, what's the biggest challenge of fundraising? Gillingly,
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  Speaker 1: Members of Congress, what is the biggest I think first
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of all the challenges that to make sure that the
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  Speaker 1: Smithsonian has the stable funding it needs. Because of the pandemic,
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  Speaker 1: We've lost millions of dollars. People aren't going to the
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  Speaker 1: restaurants and shops, which has an impact on our research
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  Speaker 1: and on staff. So really trying to make sure we
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  Speaker 1: have the strongest financial model, because what it really means
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: is we've got to rethink some things. So rather than
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: just reopen our shops, we've got to build more e commerce.
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  Speaker 1: So this is really allowing us to think creatively about
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  Speaker 1: what the Smithsonian should be. So let's talk about your
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: background a moment um. You grew up in New Jersey,
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  Speaker 1: in the Garden State, Okay, in the Garden State, and
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  Speaker 1: what did you want to be when you're growing up,
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  Speaker 1: I assume not the secretary of the Smithsonian, right. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't want I didn't know what the Smithsonian was, but
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to do something with history. I've always loved history.
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  Speaker 1: And the story that is an absolutely true story, is
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  Speaker 1: that my grandfather died the day before I turned five,
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  Speaker 1: and he would read to me, and he would read
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  Speaker 1: books and one day was reading a book and it
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  Speaker 1: had a picture of school children, um and it was
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  Speaker 1: probably from the eighteen sixties, and he said to me
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  Speaker 1: that the picture said unidentified children. And then he said
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  Speaker 1: something I've never forgotten. He said, isn't it a shame
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  Speaker 1: people could live, their lives, die, and all that says
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  Speaker 1: it's unidentified. And that got me trying to figure out
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  Speaker 1: how do I understand what their lives were like? And
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  Speaker 1: I began to look at photographs as a little kid
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  Speaker 1: and try to imagine what were their jobs? Were they happy?
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  Speaker 1: And it got me interested in history. So that was
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  Speaker 1: the first step. And the second step was growing up
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  Speaker 1: in the town I grew up in. There were very
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  Speaker 1: few African Americans. In fact, I was only African American
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  Speaker 1: in my elementary school, and there were people that treated
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  Speaker 1: me horribly and others that treated me wonderfully. And I thought,
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  Speaker 1: if I understood the history of this town, maybe i'd
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  Speaker 1: understand me. When you were younger, your father would drive
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  Speaker 1: you to the South, but you couldn't stop in many
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  Speaker 1: places except one place that he did take you. So
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  Speaker 1: we would drive from New Jersey to visit my mother's
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  Speaker 1: family in North Carolina. And this was in jim Crow Era.
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  Speaker 1: So we would load the carp with food and blankets
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  Speaker 1: because he knew we couldn't stop. Um and what he
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  Speaker 1: was the only driver in those stop because did no
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  Speaker 1: place they would let black people stop. Um And so
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  Speaker 1: I remember he was falling asleep, and he pulled off,
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  Speaker 1: and he pulled into a motor court. Um And and
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  Speaker 1: he pulled in, and my mother my brother were asleep,
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  Speaker 1: and I was watching him, and he went out to
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  Speaker 1: smoke a cigarette and I noticed he was standing under
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a sign that said white only. And I was terrified.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I thought something's gonna happen, and I was just the wreck.
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  Speaker 1: He finally comes back in the car. He recognizes that
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  Speaker 1: I'm really worried, and he said to me something I've
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  Speaker 1: never forgotten. He said, you know, this is my America too,
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  Speaker 1: And it reminded me that no matter what happened, this
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  Speaker 1: is part of my country and I want to do
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  Speaker 1: whatever I can to make it fairer. And did he
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  Speaker 1: ever bring it to the Smithsonian? And why did he
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: bring you to the the Smithsonian? For me, when we used
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to go south, we would go past the museums, would
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: say museums in Richmond and Petersburg. And like many kids,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I was a Civil War buff and so I wanted
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  Speaker 1: desperately to stop, and he would always find an excuse
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  Speaker 1: not to stop um. And on the way back, I
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  Speaker 1: remember taking out a map and plotting, saying, Okay, they're
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: twenty miles before we get to Richmond or Petersburg, and
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  Speaker 1: I would sort of alert him, but he would always
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  Speaker 1: keep going. But then instead of driving straight to New Jersey,
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  Speaker 1: he pulled into Washington, and he pulled in front of
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  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, and he said, here is a place where
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  Speaker 1: you can go learn about yourself in a museum and
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  Speaker 1: not worry about the color of your skin. So for me,
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  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian was always a place of fairness that for
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  Speaker 1: a twelve or thirteen year old kid, this was a
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  Speaker 1: place that said to me, here you can be who
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  Speaker 1: you want, You can learn all you want and not
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  Speaker 1: worry about the color of your skin. So being secretary
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  Speaker 1: in a way was my way of thanking an institution
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  Speaker 1: that embraced me when a few places did. So, you
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: came to Washington get your undergraduate education at American University,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and I did my graduate work there. So you're an
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  Speaker 1: African American mayle. And this was the nine seventies. So
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: are there lots of job opportunities? Uh, there are very
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: few teaching jobs. Um. And I remember at the end
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of my graduate career. UM, I was broke. I was
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: living on a teaching assistant salary. And there was a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: returning student, she was forty years old, um, and she
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  Speaker 1: said to me, you should go down to the Smithsonian
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: because her husband worked there and you can maybe get
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a job. And I remember saying to her, who works
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: at the smith selling it's way you take dates because
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: it's free. I mean that was my notion of the Smithsonian. Well,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I went down and the man her husband was the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: head of science, David Challenger, and he introduced me to
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the secretary. As still in ripley, I didn't know the
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  Speaker 1: secretary was and I'm not going to get a job,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: so I'm in jeans. I've got a big afro, and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I sit there because I'm not gonna get a job,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: very comfortable. And we talked for two and a half hours.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Then he says, you know, we might want to hire you,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and I could really I said, I wouldn't mind working
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: at the Museum of History and Technology. And he said
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to me, we don't have any jobs there. We only
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: have a job at the Air and Space Museum. And
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm a nineteenth century historian, I know nothing
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: about air space and I hate airplanes. And then he
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: said language that was so instructive to me as a secretary.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: He said, young man, how much money are you making now?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And I told him. He said, you make four times
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that if you become and work for me at the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Air and Space Museum. I said, I'll become an Air
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: and Space employee. And that's really how my career began.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: By luck. You also met your wife there. Aeron Space
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: was everything I met my wife there. I learned about
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  Speaker 1: how to be a curator there, um I learned about
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the wonders of the Smithsonian. So for me, my whole
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: life has been shaped in part by the Smithsonian. So
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you were recruited away for a while to go to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: California and the museum there, and what was that um?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I went away to run to be the first curator
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of the California African American Museum, was the first state
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: funded museum that explored issues of race. And I went
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: there before the Olympics of four. So my big job
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: was to do a major exhibitional history of blacks in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the Olympics. You know, the Smithsonian taught me how to
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: be a scholar, didn't really teach you how to be
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a curator. You came back, but then you were recruited
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: away to run the Chicago Historical Society. So we moved
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to Chicago. Is that right? That's right? I was. I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: was at American History for twelve years and wasn't gonna leave,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and Chicago recruited me, and I really wasn't planning ongoing.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: But I had a meeting with the mayor and the
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: governor of Illinois and they said, this is a city
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that has been tortured by race, and if you could
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: come and be the only African American running one of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: our major institutions and do well, what an impact you
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: could have. And that appealed to me, so I came back,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and I came to Chicago and loved it and had
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: planned to stay there the rest of my career. Um,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: when I got the call to think about would you
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: like to come back and help build the Nashville of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: African American History and Culture. So there was a secretary
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: then who called you, and that was Larry S Larry Small,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and he said, come back and build this museum. And
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you came back and you ultimately took the job. But
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: why didn't you take it? Because there was no money,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: there was no land, there was no plan, and did
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you know all that? You know? I wasn't sure how
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: many knows there were. Um. I knew that there was
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: no plan, and I knew that there was no site,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know there were no staff and um.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: But what I realized is that being an African American
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: running a major museum in Chicago nurtured my soul. I
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: was really happy, but I realized that if I could
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: help build this museum, we could really both nurture the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: souls of my ancestors, but we could help America really
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: grap with race. And that's what brought me back. Now.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: The museum opened right the for President Obama left office
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and that was two and a very memorable ceremony. But
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: before we got to that ceremony, you had to get
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: an architect, to build a building, get a site, raise
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the money, and get the artifacts. So let's go through that. UM.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Let's take the money. How much the cost to build
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that museum? The museum basically cost five and fifty million
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: dollars to build, um, and we raised about six to
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: do that. Half of it was paid by the federal government,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: in half um by wonderful philanthropists and donors. Did you
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: ever think you could raise that much from the private
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: sector when you started? When I told my mother that
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I had to raise that amount of money, she said,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that's more money than God can count. So I wasn't sure, Um.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But one of my great strengths is to be able
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to sort of look at the big picture and then
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: put my head down and do the work. And so
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: slowly but surely it began to work. So when you
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: got the money from the Congress, and you got the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: money from the private sector, and then you had to
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: figure out where the are you gonna put in the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: museum and artifacts? How many artifacts did you inherit um? Zero? Um?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: We had no artifacts whatsoever, and at some point I thought, well,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: do we just do it without artifacts? But it's the Smithsonian.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: People come to see the rights fly or the Ruby Slipper,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: So we needed to find these objects. And I didn't
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: know exactly how to do it. And one day I
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: sort of fell asleep in front of television and I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: woke up an antique road show was on. I had
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: never heard of it, and so I suddenly said, what
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a great idea. So I sold the idea called it
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Saving African American Treasures, and we took curators and conservatis
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: from around the Smithsonian and went around the country and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: help people preserve grandma'sles show or that nineteent century photograph.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And then people would bring things out and say do
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you want this? And suddenly we found amazing things that
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure we could find. How many artifacts totally
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: did you get? We collected over forty artifacts, of which
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: about four thousand were on display, and seventy percent of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: them came from people's came from basement's trunks and attics
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: of people's homes. Okay, and how many people have visited
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: so far? Over seven and a half million people, and
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: it's one of the few museums at the Smithsonian up
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to now where you don't you can't just walk in
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: because you need tickets because it's demand is so great.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Um and did you expect the demand be that great?
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I did, and I knew it would be popular. It's
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, but it really has become a pilgrimage site
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: for many people, for African Americans, for non African Americans.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And we expected four thousand people a day. We were
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: getting eight thousand people a day. So we had to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: actually say you have to have tickets to get people
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: in because the crowds were so great. So every congressman
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and center is calling it for tickets. Him, I am
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: everybody's best friend. Let's go back to the opening day
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: A right, so you've worked on this for how many years?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Eleven years? Eleven years? You started with nothing? It opens
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: in September of team and who was there? Who were
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the dignitaries? It became a who's who? I mean? On
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the stage was president and Mrs Bush, president of Mrs Obama. UM.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I was seated next to John Lewis, UM, the Chief
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Justice was there, other super senior people from the Smithsonian,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Um and in the audience were who's who who's almost
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: every political figure was there, so many people from entertainment
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and sport. And what I was so moved by is
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the people who wanted to participate in the program, Oprah
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Winfrey and Will Smith and Robert de Niro, so that
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it really became more than I could have ever imagined.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: It was less an opening of a museum and more
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a celebration of a culture. So were you worried that
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: something would go wrong that day? I was terrified. I
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: was terrified that um I would mess up. I was
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: terrified that somebody would UM not enjoy themselves. I was
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: terrified that we wouldn't get the crowds that I hoped,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and instead we got tens of thousands of people on
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the mall. Um it became an opportunity where I thought
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: some of the best speechmaking I've ever heard. I thought
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: President Bush gave a powerful speech about how um a
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: great nation confronts it's just three doesn't run from it.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: President Obama talked, oh just beautifully about what this meant
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: to him and his family, but clearly the late John
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Lewis stole the show, talked about how this museum was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the culmination of the civil rights movement for him, and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: that this was really something that he was proudest of.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I was so grateful to be
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: able to help fulfill his dream. It was just a
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: special day. President Bush forty three had signed the legislation
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: with approved the museum, and President Obama was president when
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: it was open. I think he had to you make
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: sure it's open while I'm in office. He did. He
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: would say to me, you've got to let me clip
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: cut the ribbon, and so that was great. I would
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: go to construction people and say I was talking to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the President. He says, we got to move a little quicker.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So okay. So most people don't have a chance to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: do two great things in life. One great thing is
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: pretty good for people. You built this museum. You deserve
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the lion's share of the credit, if not all the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: credit taken from nothing to this great museum. It's very
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: popular and so forth. Why did you want to be
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Smith's of the Smithsonian secretary? Because, as your mother would
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: say to you, what do you need that for? You
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: already have a great job. And besides, you have the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: best opposite in Washington. You have a great view of
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the Washington Monument at the top of the African American
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: History and Culture Museum. Why did you want this job
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: because you told me to what I What I really
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: realized is that I loved what I did, and I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: knew that I had the best view. I could see everything. Uh.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: The story is, I took President Obama through the museum
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and he came to my office and he said, you
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: got a better view than I do. And I said,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we only worked eight years. I worked eleven um and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: but I realized that I didn't need to accomplish anything
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: so I could give everything to the Smithsonian. This was
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: really my opportunity to say, how do I bring, you know,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: more than twenty five years of Smithsonian experience to the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: four How do I give back to the place that
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: has meant so much to me? And how do I
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: help the Smithsonian really rethink itself as the twenty one
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: century institution. Why do you regard this as saw an
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: important job for you to do because of you're an
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: African American, because you're an American? Why do you care
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: about the Smithsonian so much? In part as an American?
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: The Smithsonian is this amazing treasure that it really is
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: a reservoir that the public can dip into to not
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: just understand the past, but to have a better sense
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: about who we are now and really point us towards
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a better future. It is a reservoir that says, you
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: want to understand about space, We're here to do that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You want to understand about our history, We're also able
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to help you do that. You want to see the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: creativity of people artistically, We're here to do that as well.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So in some ways, the Smithsonian really is a great
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: source of information and creativity that I want the public
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: to really draw from. And so I feel honored to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: be the secret I feel humble, to be honest to
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: be the Secretary because every day I learned something new,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and I want the public to be able to learn
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: from the Smithsonian every day. Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: on the David Rubinstein Show. A period peer conversations, and
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that's it for this hour of Bloomberg Best. I'm Ed
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Baxter and I'm Denise PELEGRENI. This is Bloomberg. Yeah,