Tavis Smiley had a dream while visiting Jamestown, Va., the place where the first African slaves arrived in America in 1619.
Hosting a 2007 PBS special about the settlement’s founding on its 400th anniversary, he realized the story was too big to tell in one program, one that wouldn’t reach as many Americans as he wanted. “I started wrestling with the idea: How do I get this story told?” said the host of the PBS late-night talk show that carries his name.
That idea in record time became “America I AM: The African American Imprint,” an exhibition featuring nearly 300 artifacts that opened this weekend at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. Atlanta is the second stop in a 10-city, four-year tour.
Of course, it took many partners to make the exhibit happen: Arts and Exhibitions International (which also organized the recent King Tut exhibit here); an advisory panel of top African-American scholars such as Henry Louis Gates Jr.; an executive producer, John Fleming, to hunt down artifacts and cajole loans for the 22,000-square-foot show; and sponsors, including Wal-Mart, willing to bankroll millions.
But it wouldn’t have happened without the vision of Gulfport, Miss.-born Smiley, who rose from humble roots, the oldest of 10 kids who grew up in a three-bedroom trailer in Indiana. A beating by his stepfather, recounted in his 2006 memoir “What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America,” among other struggles, propelled his life of achievement.
“I always dream big. If I don’t do anything else, I dream big,” said the convivial conversationalist, 44, with whom we talked during an Atlanta visit for the “America I AM” opening.
On his favorite artifact: “It changes every time I walk through the exhibit. Today, it’s the [just-added rare 1865 copy of the] 13th Amendment [abolishing slavery]. But I think throughout the entire exhibit, the ‘ahhh’ piece is the [1653] slave doors [which Ghanians passed through on their way to New World slavery]. As a kid just out of college, I went to Africa [as an assistant to Maya Angelou] and stood in [this very] Door of No Return, and I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I darn near fainted.”
On whether his achievements, including “America: I AM,” have helped him recover from his challenging youth: “When you go through something traumatic like [abuse], I have found you spend the rest of your life trying to put as much distance between yourself and that incident as possible… . You’re trying to make sure while you don’t forget, that it never happens again. All the work that I do is really about celebrating the humanity in people.”
On the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “He said life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? Everybody knows he’s my hero. I regard him as the greatest American we’ve ever produced.”
On leaving Tom Joyner’s national radio show last year amid allegations that he couldn’t take the heat after being critical of presidential candidate Barack Obama: “I don’t regret anything I said or take anything back because I never said anything demeaning or derogatory about Barack. My mission on radio and TV is to hold people accountable, and that doesn’t get put on hold because that person is black. … And he’s a big boy; he can handle it.”
On whether he considers himself a Southerner: “I think once a Southerner, always a Southerner. … I appreciate more than anything else, particularly as I get older, how the most hospitable people in the country are still in the South, and I appreciate the values I had instilled in me in the Midwest… . All of that helps you stay focused when you get to a place like L.A., where everybody’s out of control.”
On whether seeing “America: I AM” makes him feel good: “Shhh, better than good. And not for me, but it feels good to see all the people empowered by it.”
On view
“America I AM: The African American Imprint”
Through Sept. 6. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays and Fridays-Saturdays; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. Closed Mondays.
Tickets (purchased for a specific date) are available at Ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000. $12, adults; $5, ages 4-17; $8, age 65 and up and for groups of 10 or more. Discounted tickets ($10, adult; $4, children) are available at Wal-Mart stores throughout Georgia.
Audio tours narrated by Tavis Smiley and Princeton University scholar Cornel West, $4. Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, 395 Piedmont Ave., Atlanta 404-523-6275, www.americaiam.org.
