Lonnie G. Bunch III is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He assumed his position June 16, 2019. As Secretary, he oversees 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education units and centers. Two new museums—the National Museum of the American Latino and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum—are in development. Bunch was the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and is the first historian to be Secretary of the Institution. In 2021, he received France’s highest award, The Legion of Honor.
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Like all institutions operating these days, museums have had to fundamentally shift to respond in real time to a global pandemic, a reckoning around racial justice, and a cris...