An Interview with Lonnie Bunch by Anthony Bogues

“THIS MUSEUM IS ABOUT AMERICAN IDENTITY AS MUCH AS IT IS ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY”
An Interview with Lonnie Bunch

by Anthony Bogues

This interview was conducted July 1, 2015, in Washington DC.

BOGUES: I want to start by thanking you first Lonnie very much for agreeing to do this, and we should begin really by asking the question: How did we get here? How did we get to the moment where we will shortly have a National Museum of African American Culture and History on the Mall?

BUNCH: Even though there has been a hundred-year struggle to do this, a powerful catalyst came with the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement and the ways people began to think about the movement. The Civil Rights Movement is sometimes thought of as this feel good moment . . . we all came together and we overcame. There was also this sense that many of the people who were involved in that movement were fading from the scene, and that there needed to be a way for us to celebrate and remember them. That led to a broader discussion about remembering the African American Experience. Another crucial factor: we now have the benefit of about sixty years of solid scholarship. That has given us the kind of foundational work that is at the core of a strong, scholarship-driven institution. We also, candidly, have a middle class community—black and white—that could provide some of the financial support needed to build a museum costing more than $500 million. Finally, and I can’t over emphasize this, the main reason this museum is opening is because of Congressman John Lewis.¹ John Lewis created the legislation, and he’s one of those heroes that other members of Congress had to follow. All of these things came together ten years ago and have allowed us to come this far.

BOGUES: Can you just talk a little bit about some of the practical steps that were taken to get to this moment?

BUNCH: After fifteen years of not getting through, the legislation for the museum finally passed in 2003. This was, again, thanks to the leadership of John Lewis and the fact that he was able to work with people on both sides of the aisle. After the legislation was passed, there was a Commission appointed by President George W. Bush to look at the feasibility of this endeavor. Could there even be a museum? Should it be part of the Smithsonian? Should it be independent? How big should it be? Could it really raise money? The Commission spent a year and a half traveling around the country and listening to people—scholars, historians, educators, journalists, activists—then came back with a report that outlined some key ideas including how large it should be and what kind of collections it should have. In 2005, after leaving the Smithsonian twice, the institution convinced me to come back to start work on creating this museum. I used that Presidential Commission Report as a point of departure. I began to think about what it meant for the proposed museum to be part of the Smithsonian versus being a separate institution, what it meant if it were on the Mall versus off the Mall. I began identifying staff and identifying scholars who could help us shape the intellectual content of the museum, its exhibitions, its publications, and its public programs. Then we began developing the long-term strategy for getting the museum open in a decade. That’s where we are now—within a year of getting it open.

BOGUES: One of the things that strikes me about this museum is that there is something different about it, from all the other museums on the Mall. What is it that is distinctive about this museum?

BUNCH: There are two things that make the NMAAHC unique. First, this museum is explicitly about making America better by confronting its tortured racial past. It’s not a place simply to commemorate and touch the past. It’s a place that makes it clear that the past is a useful tool—maybe even a small weapon—to be used to help change America, to help force America to confront the chasm between its stated ideals and the reality of life in America for the people who are oppressed and marginalized. Another thing that makes us unique is this is a museum that refuses to run away from difficult issues. I remember saying to people when I first came: if you don’t want controversy, then don’t build this museum. Because as John Hope Franklin always said to me: “If the museum tells the unvarnished truth—it’s got to confront slavery, it’s got to confront racial violence, it’s got to confront segregation.” ² But it also has to do it in a way that’s engaging, in a way that moves us forward in a conversation about race, and in a way that moves us forward as a nation. We are committed to being the best of the traditional museums—one with great collections, with great exhibitions telling great stories—while at the same time recognizing that that’s not enough. This museum must be firm as it stands at the forefront of creating a safe place to have conversations about race so we can help America live up to her promises.

BOGUES: This specific characteristic of the museum is a little bit off the beaten track of what museums do, even for the twenty-first century. As you know, the rethinking about museums today focuses a lot on audiences in a preoccupation that museums should not be elite institutions. There is the thinking therefore about democratization. But you seem to be doing that, and something else. You seem to be thinking about the museum as a change agent.

BUNCH: Absolutely. It is so important that this museum be in the center of its community— not a community center—but in the center of its community. I think it’s really important that this museum is about access and audience. It has to take advantage of the fact that people will come to the Smithsonian and deal with issues that they won’t deal with anywhere else. If the museum isn’t about social justice, if the museum isn’t about making America better, then it really is a nineteenth-century museum in a twenty-first-century space. I want it to be a twenty-first-century museum.

BOGUES: What does that mean for your collection strategy?

BUNCH: What it means is that there is a double burden on the staff. How do you build a museum that tells difficult stories? How do you build collections that speak of violence, that speak of discrimination? That also speak of resiliency? But then the second part of it is this: how do you begin to think about building collections and building exhibitions that illuminate contemporary considerations? So part of what we’ve done is said: you can’t just be saddened or angry by Ferguson, or Eric Gardner, or what happened in Baltimore. You’ve got to collect stuff about Ferguson, Gardner, and what happened in Baltimore. You have got to collect oral histories, photographs, protest signs, and you’ve got to create opportunities now for people to begin to engage with what this means. At the same time we have to consider the needs of the people who will be running the museums fifty years from now. What collections would they want to have to allow them to tell the story of what’s happening today to the people who will be visiting the museum in 2065 and beyond?

BOGUES: That means you have a different curatorial practice, and I want to talk a little bit about that. What’s the curatorial practice of the museum as you see it?

BUNCH: Again, it’s finding that right tension between what you have to do traditionally, and what you should be doing to move the country forward. We’ve hired curators who are specialists but are also comfortable with being generalists and looking forward. I’ve wanted to make sure that if I hire someone who works on the diaspora, that they are also comfortable looking at the contemporary diaspora, and wrestling with what does it mean over the next ten or fifteen years, so that we can begin to collect things. Another aspect of the curatorial strategy is to create a foundation of exhibitions that gives an overview and sweep so that we can go deep into slavery, sports, music, etc., and once that’s done, we can use our changing exhibition programs and use our public programs in productive ways. That means we will be able to think about and show what it meant that rhythm and blues in the 1950s became rock and roll. What did that tell us about the changing notions of urbanization and race? Curators therefore have to be a little more nimble. I’ve looked to build a curatorial team and a curatorial practice that is more comfortable with ambiguity.

BOGUES: That must be very difficult because the curatorial job is usually one of selection and telling a fairly straightforward narrative. To tell the story—not simplistically—but in a simple, straightforward way.

BUNCH: Right. I think it’s a difficult challenge. I would argue that part of my job—part of the job of the senior managers and of the associate director for curatorial affairs, Rex Ellis—is to make sure that ambiguity is there, and that we’re helping our curators be comfortable with that. When I was a curator of political history, part of my job was thinking in a box on how I could tell people about political history. But now this museum is about layering in, building stories of complexities, of trying to change the major narratives. It is curatorially about how to be a change agent. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to be an agent of change. I’m not going to argue that every museum curator is completely comfortable with that idea, but the key is to have enough people who are that move you in that direction.

BOGUES: It therefore seems that the museum is doing a couple of things. Firstly, that it is challenging a conventional American story of itself, and secondly, it is also challenging a set of museum practices. Is that not overwhelming?

BUNCH: My philosophy is that the Smithsonian ought to do the hardest work, not the easiest work. Put another way, I want the Smithsonian to lead. There were many years that the Smithsonian led the world in museums. I would argue that in many cases, with some notable exceptions, the last twenty years has seen leadership come from other places—smaller museums, museums in the UK. Part of my goal is to set a new challenge for the Smithsonian: to no longer be the autocratic place that says, “We’re the best follow me,” but to say, “We want to be the best because we’re asking different questions, we’re looking in different directions.” There are museum directors who think I’m crazy; they think that it’s hard enough just to build a new museum. And there are people out there who will say, “Why didn’t you do x? Why didn’t you do y?” My hope is that rather than say, “Look at the exhibitions we’ve done,” what people will say is, “Look at the practices we put in place, look at the desire to be forward looking and backward looking.” My hope is that this will then have an impact and effect upon how other museums do their work.

BOGUES: And therefore the museum is really about re-defining what it means to be American?

BUNCH: Absolutely. This museum is about American identity as much as it is about African American history.

BOGUES: What’s your vision for the museum, twenty years from now?

BUNCH: That they still let me have a parking place. [Laughter]

BOGUES: [Laughter]

BUNCH: I would like the museum to be seen as a center for discourse about changing America, a place that will wrestle with difficult issues, and a place that will also help us re-think history. As a historian, I feel strongly that history matters, and yet in most of our museums, we don’t act like history matters. We act like history is nostalgia, almost like an afterthought. So I hope that people will have a sense that history is as much about today and tomorrow as it is about yesterday. Secondly, I want this museum to be seen as a home to a lot of people. Home to people who’d expect it to be home—African Americans—but home to others, too, who are interested in progressive issues, who are interested in understanding how America, as Langston Hughes said, “can be America again.” ³ And I guess the last thing I would like is that the museum also has—and this is the hardest thing—a nimbleness, that the museum is able, in twenty or thirty years, to change a lot of stuff that we’ve already put in place. In this change, I hope the museum is comfortable, whether it’s through technology or staff, being able to say, not only do we collect a Ferguson, but we really have the opportunity now to do a major exhibition quickly, that allows people to sort of contextualize and understand whatever the issue is.

BOGUES: How would you respond to a comment that says: The NMAAHC is an African American Museum and really should be about African American achievement and the memories of African Americans? That’s what we need, given where we are today.

BUNCH: There are many people who have said to me that this has to be a place that inspires a new generation and that you inspire more by telling positive stories than by exploring difficult issues. But I would argue that this museum has to give people some sense of “tension.” People will certainly be able to come and get those positive images and those thrilling stories about “the famous firsts”; but I think those images of a positive nature are only powerful when they’re contextualized by the difficulties. For example, let’s think about Madam C.J. Walker.⁴ How does a black woman create that kind of entrepreneurial enterprise at a time when white supremacists are burning down black businesses simply because they think black people shouldn’t be in business? It’s that tension that I want. I’m not always sure I can get it right. But I am sure that by thinking about tension, we’ll be able to evolve as a museum.

BOGUES: Why do you do this job?

BUNCH: Wow, that’s a hard one. I remember when I was about twelve, I’d go to family barbecues. The old men would be out in the back and they wouldn’t let me back there. I wanted to be back there because I thought that was where I would find the Wisdom of the Ages! When I finally got back there, I remember hearing them say, “Man I watched Jackie Robinson play. He was the best!” Then another one would say, “Oh he wasn’t as good as so and so.” I soon realized that real learning came from that kind of conversation and interaction. For me, a good museum exhibition does just that. It allows me to have conversations with unforeseen generations. It also allows me to stimulate conversation that moves people in a different direction. I do this because there is nothing I love more than history. And there is nothing I love more than helping people see how history matters. As much as I love teaching in the academy—and I was probably pretty good at it—I really love the idea of helping millions of people grapple with issues in a way that I can’t do by being in a classroom.

BOGUES: Let me ask you one final question. There is a way in which, in thinking about museums today and the work of museums, we have begun to talk about the public humanities, and what some would call a public curriculum. So, I end by asking you, what is the role of the museum in the public humanities and the public curriculum?

BUNCH: I’m old enough to have come out of graduate school when the worst thing you could do was not be in the academy. When I left U-Mass, I recall some of my advisors saying I had ruined my career by going back to museums. Yet I now realize, thirty years later, that all of us in the academy and in museums recognize both the need and the opportunity to create public dialogue, to take amazing scholarship and make it useful and usable. For me, this museum has to be at the forefront of that. It has to be a place that collaborates with universities and other museums to forge that public acknowledgement and acceptance and usefulness of the past. The Smithsonian is uniquely situated because people trust it. I want to craft a museum that is worthy of the name Smithsonian, but more importantly, one that is worthy of the rich African American culture that we’re all trying to interpret and preserve. If we can do that right, working with institutions like Brown University and Yale and others, we can create an America that no longer thinks in ahistorical ways. We can create an America that recognizes that wrestling with slavery isn’t denigrating Thomas Jefferson, it’s helping us understand Jefferson, because you can’t understand Jefferson without understanding slavery. My hope is that we will be a part of the continuing discovery of America by Americans.

BOGUES: Thanks very much, Lonnie. Is there anything else you think you want to say?

BUNCH: You got me with that question, “Why would I do that?” I ask myself that question every morning at 2 o’clock. Why am I doing this? Part of what is so amazing is the public thirst for this. I was washing the car the other day. A neighbor came by and said, “I walked by that museum building and I am stunned. We are actually going to be able to tell the real story of African American history and culture.” Then she said to me: “Do you think America’s ready?” And I said, “Ready or not . . . ready or not . . .” [Laughter]

BOGUES: Ready or not . . .

BUNCH: Here it comes!

BOGUES: Thanks.

BUNCH: My pleasure, thank you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

My thanks to Dr. Bunch for doing this interview and to Renee Neely for transcribing it.

NOTES

1. Since 1987 John Lewis has been the representative for Georgia’s 5th Congressional District. A remarkable figure in twentieth-century American political history, he was chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and played a leading role in the African American struggle to end legal segregation and Jim Crow.

2. John Hope Franklin was one of America’s premier historians. His writings on African American history have profoundly shaped the writing of American history. His most popular book is From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (McGraw Hill, 2000).

3. The words are taken from the African American poet Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” written in 1935.

4. Madam C.J. Walker was an African American female entrepreneur who developed an extensive line of hair products for African American women. She was the first child of her family to be born after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Lonnie Bunch, educator, historian, and curator, is the founding Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, a position to which he was elected in 2005. Bunch received graduate and undergraduate degrees from American University. He has taught at George Washington University, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and American University. In fact, his career in museum work exceeds that of university teaching: the first curator for the California African American Museum (1983-1989), curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of American History (1994-2000), and President of the Chicago Historical Society (2001-2005). He is author of Call the Lost Dream Back: Essays on History, Race & Museums (2010) and Memories of the Enslaved: Voices from the Slave Narratives (2015) and editor of a number of other books, including Through the African American Lens: Double Exposure (2015) and African American Women (Double Exposure) (2015). In 2011, Black Entertainment Television (BET) selected Bunch to receive its BET Honors for outstanding service to American education.

Anthony Bogues is a writer, curator, and the Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory at Brown University where he is the inaugural director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. He is the author/editor of six books and co-curator of exhibitions in South Africa and the USA. His latest book is From Revolution in the Tropics to Imagined Landscapes: The Art of Edouard Duval Carrie (2014).