Where Memory Is Guarded
- Feb 28
- 3 min read
Lonnie G. Bunch III was born in 1952, in Newark, New Jersey—at a moment when Black Americans were still fighting for the right to be seen as fully human, let alone fully historical. That timing matters. He came of age in a world where history was present, but not always preserved for him—or told with him in mind.
He often speaks about learning early that history mattered. His grandfather read to him. His parents, both educators, reinforced that knowledge had weight. As the only Black family in his neighborhood, he also learned—painfully—that exclusion could be casual and normalized. One childhood memory stays with him: while other children were handed Kool-Aid, he was told to drink from the hose. That moment was small, but instructive. It taught him who was considered worthy of care—and who was not.
For Bunch, history became a tool. In his own words, it was a weapon for fairness and social justice. Not for revenge, but for truth.
He attended Howard University, then earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from American University. Early in his career, he joined the Smithsonian Institution as an education specialist at the National Air and Space Museum. He would leave and return several times over the years, drawn back repeatedly to an institution he understood could either mirror the nation’s blind spots—or help correct them.
Along the way, he worked on major public history projects, including curating Black Olympic history and helping develop the California African American Museum in Los Angeles ahead of the 1984 Olympics. That work sharpened his understanding of how protest, patriotism, and national memory intersect. He once said that protest is the highest form of patriotism—not because it rejects a nation, but because it demands that a nation live up to its promises.
In the late 1990s, he returned to the Smithsonian to serve as associate director for curatorial affairs at the National Museum of American History. In 2001, as president of the Chicago Historical Society, a meeting would profoundly shape his future: he met Mamie Till-Mobley. Hearing her speak about her son, Emmett, and the deliberate decision to show the world the truth of his death, reinforced for Bunch that history is not neutral. It is chosen. Preserved—or lost.
That understanding followed him in 2005, when he was named founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. There was no building. No collection. No roadmap. Just an idea that Black history deserved a permanent, national home.
It took eleven years and nearly $600 million in public and private funds to make that idea real. Working with architect David Adjaye, Bunch helped shape a space designed not just to house artifacts, but to hold memory with dignity. More than 35,000 objects were secured. Some he personally curated—items that carried both cultural and emotional weight, including Emmett Till’s casket and Harriet Tubman’s hymnal. These were not symbols chosen lightly. They were truths entrusted to the future.
When the museum opened in 2016, it changed the national landscape. African American history was no longer an add-on. It was central.
In 2019, Bunch became the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian—the first Black person to ever hold the role. By then, the institution oversaw 19 museums, nine research centers, the National Zoo, and the development of new museums yet to come. That it took until 2019 for this moment to happen says as much about the nation as it does about him.
His tenure has not been quiet. He led through the COVID-19 pandemic, closing museums and later reopening them in a changed world. More recently, he has had to navigate growing political pressure around how history is told—balancing scholarship, public trust, and an increasingly contested cultural climate.
And still, the work continues.
Lonnie G. Bunch III does not simply preserve African American history. He protects its place in the national story. He ensures it is accessible, respected, and safeguarded—not as a favor, but as a necessity.
This is where the spotlight rests—not on applause, but on responsibility. Because once history is finally given a home, the question becomes not whether it belongs—but whether we are willing to keep learning from it.
