Three weeks ago, while my wife was undergoing a mammogram examination at Mt. Sinai, I took a stroll down the Museum Mile and visited the Cooper Hewitt Museum. In the museum’s shop I spied Lonnie Bunch’s “A Fool’s Errand” on the bookshelf. After I purchased it, I was told it was the last copy. Since then, the book has been part of my collection begging for attention. Now that the Smithsonian Institution, where Lonnie is the first African American to serve as its head, is threatened with closure by the Trump administration, I felt it was time to finish reading it and see how it anticipated some of today’s tumult coming from Washington.
The book is essentially about a success story, the realization of a dream Lonnie had after re-reading Albion Tourgee’s 1879 novel “A Fool’s Errand.” Lonnie said that he saw “the journey to build a museum that could help bridge” the nation’s divide. After many frustrating years, working at several museums and earning his degree in history, Lonnie began thinking again about a national museum to house and exhibit the artifacts and stories of African American history. What he envisioned was very much like the one Dr. Charles Wright conceived in Detroit where his remarkable museum began as a trailer in the back of a building.
Lonnie was a tireless advocate for a national museum and after legislation was passed in 2003, the Smithsonian began searching to find leadership, he said that he was less interested in the job but, alas, “the possibilities and the challenges of creating a national museum too alluring to resist.” In 2005, he was named director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). As founding director, he initiated programs of traveling exhibitions before the museum was officially opened. His book captures all of the events and circumstances leading up to this monumental achievement, as well as some of the troubling incidents on the path to success.
Actress Angela Bassett, in her blurb of the book, noted that it is “a fascinating depiction of a dreamer and his destiny as he works faithfully to bring to fruition a home not just for artifacts, but finally a resting place of memory and spirit.” I was particularly engrossed in his recollection of Emmett Till and the role his casket played in the museum’s drama. Since the book was published in 2019, there is no full account of his election as secretary of the Smithsonian, which he began in the summer of 2019.
There are several mentions of Trump, especially during his first administration, that Lonnie handles with delicacy, though clearly aware of the dangers he represented to the museum’s stability. “My first interaction with the Trump administration took place just prior to his inauguration,” Lonnie wrote. “…The incoming president wanted to tour the museum on the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. I had no problem with the request until they added a caveat: the museum would need to be closed to the public. The notion that we would shut out visitors on the first King holiday since the opening of the museum was not something I would accept. So the tour was canceled.” Eventually, Trump did visit, but Lonnie said there was little he could remember about that occasion. When Trump stopped and commented favorably about the display on the Dutch in the slave trade, noting how the folks in the Netherlands loved him, Lonnie said he was so disappointed “in his response to one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history.”
That meeting was a harbinger, and things have become increasingly worse. Back in April, Steven Cheung, the White House’s communications director, was asked how Trump was depicted in the book and the tour in 2017: “Lonnie Bunch is a Democrat donor and rabid partisan who manufactured lies out of thin air in order to boost sales of his miserable book. Fortunately, he, along with his garbage book, are complete failures.”
Lonnie said in a statement to his staff that “We remain steadfast in our mission to bring history, science, education, research, and the arts to all Americans. We will continue to showcase world-class exhibits, collections, and objects, rooted in expertise and accuracy. We will continue to employ our internal review processes, which keep us accountable to the public. When we err, we adjust, pivot, and learn as needed. As always, our work will be shaped by the best scholarship, free of partisanship, to help the American public better understand our nation’s history, challenges, and triumphs.”
In the wake of Trump’’ executive order undermining the Smithsonian, Kevin Young, the director of the NMAAHC, stepped down from his position after four years at the helm. No matter what happens to Lonnie as Trump seeks to avenge all who have defied him, “the museum will be on the National Mall as a beacon that challenges, celebrates, and remembers. I had kept the faith. The ancestors are smiling,” he wrote at the close of his book.