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Quote by Lonnie G. Bunch III

“One can tell a great deal about a country by what it remembers. By what graces the wall of its museums. And what monuments have privileged placement in parks or central traffic intersections. And what holidays and patriotic songs are the bane and balm to generations of school children. Yet one learns even more about a nation by what it forgets. What moments of evil, disappointment, and defeat are downplayed or eliminated from the national narratives. Often in the United States the issues of race and the centrality of African American culture are given short shrift in textbooks, popular chronicles, and national memories.”

Quote by Lonnie G. Bunch III

Book:A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
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A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump

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Lonnie G. Bunch III

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WritingArtParisMuseumsLouvreLuxembourg
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“Museums are a great cultural experience, and by that I mean a great opportunity for you to repeatedly tell your children not to touch things. I find museums incredibly exhausting, and by that I mean acting like you're interested in some of those exhibits. "So this is a painting by another European painter of another unattractive European from the 1700s? Fascinating." It seems like they were only painting the sad, ugly people back then. "Hey, you're hard on the eyes, why don't I paint your portrait?”

ArtMuseums
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“What I want to hear from museums in their vision statements is about the greater good, and that greater good is more than service audiences, it's about helping a country find truth, find insight, find nuance, and in many ways, what I hope that cultural institutions like this can do is that they're better suited than most to define reality and to give hope.”

TruthHopeInsightServiceMuseumsNuanceUnrestGreater GoodCultural Organizations
Author:Lonnie G. Bunch III
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“This process taught us to test and challenge the prevailing wisdom about the paucity of African American artifacts. What we discovered was a paucity of effort and creativity rather than a scarcity of collections. I hope that our efforts will spur other institutions to embrace community-driven collecting and commit the resources to look inside the basements and garages for material that was once deemed less important to the interpretive agenda of museums. Not every cultural organization will discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum that makes the effort will find discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum, but every museum that makes the effort will find objects that document the lives, the work, the resiliency, and the dreams of their community.”

HistoryCollectionsMuseumsAfrican AmericansBlacksCollectingAfrican American HistoryCommunities
Book:A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
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