Lonnie Bunch

Bunch was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1952[5] to Lonnie Bunch II (a science and chemistry public school teacher) and Montrose Bunch (a third-grade public school teacher),[6] both graduates of Shaw University, one of the oldest HBCUs in the South.[7] He grew up in Belleville, New Jersey, where his family were the only African Americans in their neighborhood. His grandfather, a former sharecropper, moved into the area as one of the first black dentists in the region.[8] As a child, he experienced racism from white teenagers in his neighborhood.[8] Bunch credits his childhood experiences with local Italian immigrants and his reading of biographies as a youth with inspiring him to study history. He wanted to give a voice to those who were "anonymous" or not written about. Reflecting in 2011 on the early exposures, Bunch said: "I was in junior high, and we were reading biographies of historic figures. I remember one on Gen. ‘Mad Anthony’ Wayne, and one on Clara Barton, and Dorothea Dix. I thought, ‘Were there no histories of black people?’ One day, I was going through my grandfather's trunk and I found a book about black soldiers in the First World War. I devoured it."[7]

He graduated from Belleville High School in Belleville, New Jersey in 1970.[5] Bunch attended Howard University[5] but transferred to American University in, Washington, D.C., where he earned his B.A. and M.A. in American history and African history.[9][5]

Bunch moderating a civil rights panel at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in 2014

Bunch started working at the Smithsonian Institution while he was working on his master's degree. After graduating, he was hired as a history professor at the University of Maryland. In 1983, he became the first curator at the California African American Museum.[5] He worked at the National Museum of American History from 1989 until 1994 as a curator. He was promoted to Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs at the museum before leaving in 2000 to become the president of one of the nation's oldest museums in history, the Chicago Historical Society (Chicago History Museum), from 2001 to 2005.[10] In Chicago he led a successful capital campaign, and promoted outreach to diverse communities. One noted exhibit, Teen Chicago, focused on teenager life.[11]

In 2005, Bunch was named the director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture.[9] As founding director he designed a program of traveling exhibitions and public events prior to the opening of the museum.[12]

He also served on the Commission for the Preservation of the White House during the George W. Bush administration[5] and was reappointed to the Commission by President Barack Obama in 2010.

On May 28, 2019, Bunch was elected Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He became the first historian and first African American to lead the Smithsonian in its 173-year history, taking on his new role in mid-June 2019[13] On February 12, 2021, Bunch was appointed to the Congressionally-mandated Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.[14] He later withdrew from the commission for personal reasons prior to swearing in ceremony.[15]

Bunch met his wife Maria Marable in graduate school.[17] The couple has two daughters.[18]

Bunch and Kinshasha Holman Conwill at the future location of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2006

• 2011: Jackie Robinson Society Community Recognition Award [19]
• 2017: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2017: the NAACP's President's Award
• 2018: Phi Beta Kappa Award for Distinguished Service to Humanity [20]
• 2019: Honorary degree of Brown University (LHD)[21]
• 2020: Dan David Prize[22]
• 2022: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement[23][24]

• with Laurence P. and Martha Kendall Crouchette Winnaker, Visions Toward Tomorrow, the History of the East Bay Afro-American Community 1852–1977. Oakland: Northern California Center for Afro-American History and Life. 1989. ISBN 0-9622334-0-4
• with Spencer R. Crew, Mark G. Hirsch and Harry R. Rubenstein, 2000. The American Presidency, A Glorious Burden. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 978-1560988359
• with Donna M. Wells, David E. Haberstitch and Deborah Willis, 2009. The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise. Washington: National Museum of African American History and Culture. ISBN 978-1588342720
• Call the Lost Dream Back: Essays on History, Race & Museums. Georgia: Big River Books. 2010. ISBN 978-1933253176
• with Spencer R. Crew and Clement A. Price, 2014. Slave Culture: A Documentary Collection of the Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project. Connecticut: Greenwood. ISBN 978-1440800863
• Bunch, Lonnie G. (2019). A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the age of Bush, Obama, and Trump. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. ISBN 9781588346681. OCLC 1089275852.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lonnie Bunch.

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• interview with Bunch (video). Q&A. C-SPAN. August 6, 2006.
• Frank, Adrienne & Unger, Mike (March 2017). "A painful and prideful past". American University Magazine. American University.