Lonnie Bunch

Lonnie G. Bunch III (born November 18, 1952) is an American educator and historian. Bunch has spent the last 30 years in the museum field, and is regarded as one of the nation's leading history and museum professionals. Bunch left his position as director of the Chicago Historical Society to become the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Personal life and education

Lonnie Bunch III was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1952. He grew up in Belleville, New Jersey, where they were the only African-American family in their neighborhood. His grandfather, a former sharecropper, moved into the area, as one of the first black dentists in the region, and Bunch's father and mother were school teachers. As a child, he experienced racism from white teenagers in his neighborhood. Bunch credits his childhood experiences with local Italian immigrants and his reading of biographies as a youth as inspiring him to study history. Bunch wanted to give a voice to those who were "anonymous" or not written about. In 2011 Bunch reflected on the early exposures: “I was in junior high and we were reading biographies of historic figures. I remember one on Gen. ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne, and one on Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix. I thought, ‘Were there no histories of black people?’ One day, I was going through my grandfather’s trunk and I found a book about black soldiers in the First World War. I devoured it.”