By Anya Sesay, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

After announcing Sept. 8 that he’s stepping down from his position at the end of the year, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III is heading to Milwaukee to discuss what he has called the “fool’s errand” of building a sustainable cultural institution that champions Black art and elucidates the nation’s cultural narrative.

Bunch is the first of many national museum leaders invited to Milwaukee by the Bronzeville Center for the Arts as part of its speaker series, “From the Ground Up.” The series, produced in partnership with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Chipstone Foundation, highlights those who have waded through the deep waters of race, identity and power while building monumental national institutions.

As the Bronzeville Center for the Arts works on its forthcoming Black Arts and Culture Museum, it is looking to lauded leaders who’ve steered institutions with a similar mission to the arts center.

Bunch was the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, established by Congress in 2003. He worked to build the museum through three presidencies that spanned party lines, including President Trump’s first term.

“The one thing [all the speakers] have in common is not just creating iconic institutions, but creating institutions that have pushed the boundaries on our nation’s cultural narrative, that have helped change that story,” said Ra Joy, Bronzeville Center for the Arts’ executive director.

In conversation with Joy, Bunch will shed light on the enormous task of building an enduring institution that holds both local and national significance – a feat Bronzeville Center for the Arts hopes one day to achieve. The two also will discuss Bunch’s 2019 memoir, “A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump,” which chronicle’s his more than a decade-long journey to build the heralded museum.

Secretary Bunch announced his departure from the Smithsonian September 8, ending a power struggle of sorts with President Trump over fundamental disagreements about the Smithsonian’s depiction of American history. Bunch is expected to depart at the end of the year, according to a Smithsonian news release.

“I hope this news emboldens the secretary to speak more freely,” Joy said.

As museums work to navigate the Trump administration’s ever-encroaching demands about how to tell the American story, Bunch’s timely Milwaukee visit may present local cultural institutions with new insights into the questions that are defining this cultural age.

“Secretary Bunch is kind of like the president of museums in America. What he has experienced, what he has endured, we’re going to benefit tremendously from. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone more fitting to serve as our inaugural speaker than Secretary Bunch,” Joy said.

 

If you go

The free conversation between Bunch and Joy will begin at 5 pm Sept. 16 in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Lubar Auditorium, 700 N Art Museum Drive. The event has reached capacity, but it is still accepting RSVPs in case seats open up. To join the waitlist, visit bcamke.org/from-the-ground-up.

Anya Sesay covers arts and culture for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Send her story ideas, things to see and people to meet atasesay@usatodayco.com. Follow her on Instagram@anyanic0lette.

Anya’s reporting is supported by the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation, the Maine-based Rabkin Foundation, and reader contributions to theJournal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visitjsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.

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Read the full story with images on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.