By the Arkansas Black Vitality Staff

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Nov. 23, 2025 —  Only months after bringing former President Barack Obama to northwest Arkansas for an intimate conversation, Crystal Bridges Board Chair and Walmart heiress Olivia Walton will interview the nation’s newest Supreme Court justice.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art today announced the next installment of Building Bridges, featuring Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Building Bridges: Disagreement by Design: A Conversation with Justice Amy Coney Barrett will be held at Heartland Whole Health Institute on the Crystal Bridges Campus on Saturday, May 9, at 6 p.m. 

Hosted by Walton, Building Bridges brings together thought leaders, thinkers, and artists with differing perspectives to model civic dialogue. From Crystal Bridges’ home in Bentonville, the museum invites its neighbors and the nation to gather at its bridge, a place that connects what’s divided and can carry us forward together.

According to museum officials, the upcoming conversation with the Supreme Court jurist will explore how civil disagreement sustains democracy and how the American legal system is structured to accommodate differing viewpoints while upholding shared rules and institutions.  

“(T)he Justice will discuss how respect, intellectual rigor, and adherence to process guide judicial decision-making, and why these principles matter to every citizen,” Crystal Museum said in a statement.

Barrett, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in New Orleans on Jan. 28, 1972. A Rhodes College graduate, she earned her law degree from Notre Dame and clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman and Justice Antonin Scalia before teaching at Notre Dame Law School. She joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2017 and was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, taking her seat Oct. 27, 2020.

For Barrett’s appearance, Crystal Bridges members have first access to tickets for Building Bridges: Disagreement by Design: A Conversation with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, starting today (Monday, April 20.) The museum’s members receive advance notification and early access to ticketed events, like the Building Bridges series. The event will be livestreamed by Arkansas TV.

Walton and Crystal Museum first launched the Building Bridges in December,  saying the high-profile lecture series would celebrate the American spirit of meeting in the middle with curiosity, courage, and care. The inaugural interview by Olivia featured a conversation with President Barack Obama, the 44^th president of the United States.  

During that first event, President Obama also met privately with 450 Arkansas students and teachers for a roundtable conversation in Crystal Bridges’ Great Hall. Three high school seniors from Bentonville, Little Rock, and Springdale joined the president to discuss their civic engagement and hopes for America’s next 250 years. Students who attended the event represented 24 schools from across the state of Arkansas and were selected by their schools. 

Barrett’s appearance in May will come nearly a month ahead of the museum’s upcoming anniversary celebration. Four years ago, Crystal Museum announced its multi-million-dollar expansion, which officials said aimed to revolutionize the art museum experience.

On June 6 and 7, 2026, Crystal Bridges will celebrate its 15th anniversary with expanded access to five centuries of American Art by adding another 114,000 square feet of space. That expansion, officials said, will showcase a transformed way for visitors to interact with every part of the building—facilitating surprise and delight, joyful learning, and ever-broadening American stories. 

Founded by Walmart family heir and philanthropist Alice Walton, Crystal Bridges is located on a 134-acre campus that also includes the Heartland Whole Health Institute and the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. The museum is set within 134 acres of Ozark landscape and was designed by the world-renowned Safdie Architects.  

Today, Crystal Bridges offers public programs , including lectures, performances, classes, and teacher development opportunities; it is also home to the prestigious Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art and the Tyson Scholars of American Art Program. Approximately 558,375 schoolchildren have participated in the Willard and Pat Walker School Visit program, which provides educational experiences for school groups at no cost to schools.

Since opening in 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 15 million visitors across its spaces, with no admission charge. Founded in 2005 as a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization by Alice Walton, the gallery’s collection spans five centuries of American masterworks from early American to current day and is enhanced by temporary exhibitions.