It's not just a story about slavery, it's about slavery and freedom.

It's also about that undeniable and unrepressible urge for freedom that African Americans demonstrated.

Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

I'm Kelly Corrigan and today I'm wondering about what we remember and how and why, with

a guy who is so bright and prolific in his work, his name is Kevin Young.

He is, in addition to being the poetry editor at the New Yorker, the director of the National

Museum of African American History and Culture in DC, that spectacular place where I went

with PBS to film a conversation.

It was really an honor to sit with Kevin in that place and talk about the many layers

of the American experience and how we memorialize the things we've done.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

I'm Kelly Corrigan, artists, teachers and people who design museums wrestle with a

Herculean task, how to get people to feel something they haven't experienced, how to

feel spaces, such that something shifts and they think and act in new and better ways.

Kevin Young is a celebrated poet and author who has written 15 books of poetry and prose,

including Bunk, The Rise of Hoax's Humbug, Plagiarist, Phones, Post-Facts and Fake News,

and another book called The Grey Album, which won the Penn Open Book Award.

He's also the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture,

a monument that was first proposed 101 years ago by Black Veterans who hoped the country

would remember their service.

Finally, five years ago, the 400,000 square foot museum was opened to offer a more complete

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