But I'm a historian. I wasn't interested in just being a producer, I was interested in doing research and presenting that research to a general public.

If I had been at a University I don't think I would have been able to have the experience I had in my Smithsonian work. I don't think I have been as successful.

Well, the first time I ran into the term religion, people were asking whether you had any. You know, some people had religion and some people didn't have religion.

I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject.

I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I'm still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life.

I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.

I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject.

I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I’m still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life.

Well, the first time I ran into the term religion, people were asking whether you had any. You know, some people had religion and some people didn’t have religion.

The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American.