Lonnie Bunch belongs in the pantheon of Black history heroes, alongside Carter G. Woodson and John Hope Franklin.

Woodson launched what has become Black History Month, a century ago staking out a week in February to spread the word about the subject. Franklin’s 1947 book, “From Slavery to Freedom,” laid the foundation for academic study.

This month, Bunch announced his plan to resign as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He is the first African American, first historian and first Smithsonian employee to ascend to chief executive of the federal government’s visual repository of the nation’s history.

Those are significant milestones that may inspire younger historians and museum workers, but they are not what places Bunch in the pantheon.

Even he has said his greatest accomplishment was creating, from scratch, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He’s right about that, as it outweighs all his other notable accomplishments during his long career working in museums.

The institution that Bunch built has attracted an average of more than a million visitors a year since it opened 10 years ago. Institutions have an impact that compounds over time, while public memory of personal achievements eventually fades.

Though African Americans call the museum the “Blacksonian,” Bunch explained at the latest conference of the Organization of American Historians that he set out to go beyond displaying the history of Black people and also cast their struggle to overcome monumental obstacles as a human experience anyone can relate to.

A broad racial breakdown of the museum’s visitors indicates he succeeded. As popular as the museum is with African Americans, nearly half — 45% — of its visitors are not Black.

In the current political climate, that breakdown matters. President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the National Museum of African American History is one of the Smithsonian’s museums that focuses on “how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”

If that were so, why do apparently so many white Americans go to the museum? So, they can feel bad about the country, themselves and their forebears? That doesn’t make any sense, Mr. President.

The very layout of the museum expresses Bunch’s dual goal. The lowest level, below ground, focuses on slavery. The next two, also underground, narrate the Jim Crow era and then the Civil Rights Movement through Barack Obama’s presidency.

The four levels above ground celebrate African American achievements from art and culture to athletics and the military.

The placement of the exhibitions symbolizes the rise of African Americans from chains to accomplishments. It is an ascent, though incomplete, that draws admiration around the world. Leaders of India’s Dalits, formerly called Untouchables, look up to African Americans as a model of upward advancement, for instance.

Bunch deserves credit for standing up to Trump’s verbal and bureaucratic assaults on the Smithsonian, including the African American History Museum, for nearly two years. Bunch has been his forthright but diplomatic in defending an independent federal institution created by Congress.

In 2017, less than a month after Trump began his first term as president, Bunch led him on a tour of the museum that had opened in the waning days of the Obama administration. Trump called what he saw a “beautiful tribute to so many American heroes.”

What a difference eight years make.

The exhibitions have not changed substantially. But for obvious political reasons, Trump started his current term descending into a distorted appeal to racist Americans, slamming the Smithsonian in an executive order whose details pointed to the African American History Museum.

Bunch has said the announcement of his resignation wasn’t prompted by pressure from the administration. He is 73 and has indicated he is retiring to pursue less burdensome interests, such as teaching and writing. Believe him.

In April, at the conference of historians in Philadelphia, Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed asked Bunch what he looks forward to. He glanced at his gleaming watch on his left wrist and replied, “Retirement.”

Gamely, Bunch has scheduled his retirement for the end of the year. He’s gambling that Democrats win control of Congress in November, a pretty good bet at this point.

A new secretary of the Smithsonian will be hired by its 17-member board, composed of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Vice President J. D. Vance, six members of Congress, and nine private citizens.

Three citizen slots have remained vacant, held up by behind-the-scenes wrangling with the administration. Another two or three citizen slots become vacant next month, including the seat of Franklin D. Raines, a Harvard graduate who directed the powerful Office of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton.

The board nominates new citizen members, who must be approved by Congress in a joint resolution that the president signs.

If Democrats gain control of the House and Senate, they will have the leverage to limit or eliminate Trump-promoted candidates who adhere to the racist, rose-colored version of history that he wants the Smithsonian to present.

That’s a reason, among many others, for African Americans and their allies to vote for Democratic members of Congress in the midterm election in November. Honest history and the “Blacksonian,” at least as Bunch conceived it, are at stake.

Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner