He was down to earth. In 1997 I first started making contact with him. He didn't know me from Adam.... Here was a man with so much stature and such an entourage. I started to call him Mr. Parks. He told me to call him Gordon.

I guess I'm reasonably confident in all honesty. But I definitely don't think I'm arrogant. I'm pretty down to earth, I mean I'm genuinely down to earth.

You can go and you can listen and you can really push the buttons for kids to act and go and look at your family history and all those kind of things. Inside the museum, the eight galleries, the hands on, the classroom space, a foyer grand entry where the community can use for weddings and receptions -- the whole nine yards.

It may change a little, but hopefully that café won't change.

It has the shape of a sailboat, right in line with the architecture of the river and reminiscent of the old slave ships coming to America.

The varying materials come together through the common bond of coming from the earth. The structure, while contemporary in form, appears to have one site for years.