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Black Kos Tuesday: Flowers for Lonnie Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution [1]
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Date: 2025-04-01
Flowers for Lonnie Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Commentary by Chitown Kev
The current occupant of the Oval Office, along with his sidekick, seems determined to turn these United States into...I don’t know, reflections of their conscious and unconscious mind, and with results that the entire world can see. These feats of dark metamorphosis and projection are taking place right before our very eyes and includes not only America's present but its past, as well.
Take, for instance, the recent executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”
Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology. This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive. For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” an exhibit representing that “[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.” The exhibit further claims that “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating “Race is a human invention.”
Fortunately, I don’t have to concerned about where to begin with all of that hot mess, the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie g. Bunch III does a better, more diplomatic job of that than I ever could, in a internal memo to Smithsonian staff in response to Trump’s executive order.
x NEW: Internal staff email from Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch addressing Trump’s executive order. “As always, our work will be shaped by the best scholarship, free of partisanship, to help the American public better understand our nation’s history, challenges and trumphs.”
[image or embed] — Benjamin S. Weiss (@benjaminweiss.bsky.social) March 28, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Fortunately, the executive branch does not (solely) hire or appoint leaders of the Smithsonian Institution; that is the job of the 17-member Board of Regents.
Nor is the Smithsonian Institution funded solely by the federal government; about 62% of the Smithsonian’s budget is funded though congressionally authorized appropriations.
So while the political heat will be turned up, Mr. Bunch’s job is safe, For now.
Besides, looking at Mr. Bunch’s bio, something tells me he can take the heat. He may even be the most qualified director that the Smithsonian has ever had.
A widely published author, Bunch has written on topics ranging from the Black military experience, the American presidency and African American History in California, diversity in museum management and the impact of funding and politics on American museums. His most recent book, A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, chronicles the making of the museum that would become one of the most popular destinations in Washington. Bunch has worked at the Smithsonian in the past, holding several positions at its National Museum of American History from 1989 through 2000. As the museum’s associate director for curatorial affairs for six years (1994–2000), he oversaw the curatorial and collections management staff and led the team that developed a major permanent exhibition on the American presidency. He also led the team that developed “Smithsonian’s America” for the American Festival Japan 1994; this exhibition, which was presented in Japan, explored the history, culture and diversity of the United States. Bunch served as the curator of history for the California African American Museum in Los Angeles from 1983 to 1989. While there, he organized several award-winning exhibitions, including “The Black Olympians, 1904–1950” and “Black Angelenos: The Afro-American in Los Angeles, 1850–1950.” He also produced several historical documentaries for public television. Bunch is also a frequent guest on TV news programs such as Face the Nation, Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, CNN and PBS Newshour.
Mr. Bunch is a person who chose well-qualified mentors and has received great advice from the greats, as he explained during a panel discussion at Duke University’s School of Law last week.
Decades before, Bunch discovered the “holy grail” at the foundation of his philosophy of history when he met Princey Jenkins, a 90-year-old man who lived in a cabin on a rice plantation in Georgetown, S.C.where his enslaved grandmother once lived. “(Princey) said to me, ‘I’m not sure what a historian does, but if you’re a good historian, isn’t your job to help people remember, not just what they want to remember, but what they need to remember?’” Bunch said. “And that changed everything. That’s really the subtext of the museum.” Bunch also heeded the advice of the late, celebrated Duke historian John Hope Franklin, who chaired the museum’s advisory committee. “John Hope Franklin used to say to me that you’ve got to do two things. One, you’ve got to tell the unvarnished truth, and that means there’s going to be pain, there’s going to be violence, there’s going to be issues,” Bunch said. “But on the other hand, you’ve got to make sure that when people go through the museum, they’re changed.”
Earlier this year, Smithsonian Magazine published a long interview with Mr. Bunch where he spoke most eloquently on the need and place for expertise in civic life and the relationship of professional expertise to the general public.
Research has found that Americans have little trust in their institutions and government. The Pew Research Center did a survey that found only 22 percent of U.S. adults said that they trust the federal government to do the right thing always or most of the time. So, with the Smithsonian having the word “institution” literally in its name and being a representation of the country, how does it reckon with that? In some ways we already have. When people look at this, when you look at those surveys, I read them very carefully. It’s cultural institutions and the Smithsonian [that] are still the most trusted. What happens, though, is there’s always a debate about what does it mean to be “federal,” right? When I was building the African American Museum, there was a lot of chatter that you couldn't build a museum that told the truth if you’re part of the federal government, but I think I demonstrated you can do that. It’s really incumbent upon us to demonstrate that we listen and learn, [and] that we really do also believe in the kind of expertise that comes from these institutions. Almost every day, you have to prove your worth. When I was a curator at the American History Museum, we always recognized that our job was to challenge ourselves, to learn more from our audiences, to make sure that the work we do matters not just to us. In essence, I would argue that what’s important for the Smithsonian is to remember that science, art, history, culture are too important just to be in the hands of those that are experts, that it really has to be shared and made better by the interaction with a variety of people. That’s the wonderful tension of working in a place like the Smithsonian, that you have the expertise, but that expertise has to be shared, and you have to be made better by the response to that expertise.
I don’t know whether it is the editorial policy of Black Kos to “give people their flowers while they’re alive” (I think that such a policy unofficially exists!) but I will say that Lonnie Bunch III deserve those flowers as much as anyone and for many reasons.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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There is still a sense of a broken allyship as Black folks on social are warning Black Americans not to participate in protests against the Trump administration and Elon Musk. Newsone: Social Media Calls For Black People To Stay Home On National Day Of Action April 5
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Black folks on social media are warning Black Americans not to participate in an upcoming global protest against the Trump administration and Elon Musk.
On Saturday, April 5, thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world are preparing to protest Trump in what they are calling “Hands Off! National Day of Action.”
According to Third Act, one of the organizations that helped put together this massive protest said the event is meant to stand up against those who believe they can take whatever they want—our democracy, our future, our rights. So far, more than 600 events have been planned across all 50 states. Events have also been planned in Europe and Canada.
Indivisible, another organization helping to mobilize, prompted the protest on BlueSky, writing, “Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They’re taking everything they can get their hands on and daring the world to stop them. On April 5, we’re taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against the protest, saying they will never work to deter the president from further pushing his agenda.
“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” Leavitt said in a statement to USA Today. “President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers across the country who overwhelmingly reelected him.”
Black voices on social media took these words to heart and warned Black people of the dangers they could face if they participated in the upcoming protests. YouTube channel Twinshangout Kenya put together a montage video of the warnings from Black social to share the sentiment with other Black folks.
x YouTube Video
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Keni Arts shares his latest work capturing Altadena after the deadly fire as he reflects on what this community means to him. Newsone: Altadena Artist Paints ‘Beauty For Ashes’ After Eaton Fire
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Through watercolor, artist Keni Davis—known as Keni Arts—has been documenting the impact of the Eaton Fire across Altadena. Like thousands of his neighbors, the artist lost his home in the deadly January wildfire, the place where he and his wife raised three daughters. By painting the charred landscape left in the community, he uses art to cope and find beauty amid profound loss.
Despite the wreckage, the artist continues to paint as he did before the fire, revisiting familiar sites around town and capturing scenes reduced to rubble. Yet Altadena pushes forward—Keni Arts and his family are among those determined to rebuild from the ashes.
These paintings are part of his latest series, Beauty For Ashes, which depicts Altadena after the fire, before the debris is cleared. The title is inspired by the Bible verse Isaiah 61:3: “[God] will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.”
Speaking with NewsOne, Keni Arts shared a selection of paintings from his Beauty For Ashes (BFA) series, along with the stories behind them, pairing each piece with a painting he created before the Eaton Fire.
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The human death toll form this bloody war has been staggering Newsone: Understanding Sudan’s Civil War: Here’s What We Know
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On April 15, 2023, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF – led by de facto head of state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known colloquially as “Hemedti.” The RSF emerged out of the feared Janjaweed militia that had terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan.
While the SAF and RSF previously worked together to forcibly remove longtime President Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019, they later split amid a power struggle that turned deadly.
The major point of contention was the disputed timeline for RSF integration into the national military, with the RSF preferring a 10-year process to the SAF’s preferred two-year plan.
By early April 2023, the government deployed SAF troops along the streets of the capital, Khartoum, while RSF forces took up locations throughout the country. Matters came to a head when explosions and gunfire rocked Khartoum on April 15 of that year. The two forces have been in conflict ever since.
The human toll of the civil war has been staggering. As of February 2025, estimates of those killed from the conflict and its related causes, including lack of sufficient medical facilities and hunger, have ranged from 20,000 to 150,000 – a wide gulf that, according to Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond, is partially due to the fact that the dead or displaced are still being counted.
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Kamala Harris would not have done this. The Grio: US Naval Academy ends affirmative action in admissions
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The U.S. Naval Academy will no longer consider race, ethnicity or sex as a factor for admission to the service institution, a response to an executive order by President Donald Trump, according to federal court documents made public Friday.
The change in policy was made in February by Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the academy’s superintendent, in response to an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in January, according to a court filing by the U.S. Justice Department in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The president’s order on Jan. 27 said that “every element of the Armed Forces should operate free from any preference based on race or sex.” It also directed the secretary of defense to conduct an internal review with respect to all “activities designed to promote a race- or sex-based preferences system,” including reviews at the service academies.
“Under revised internal guidance issued by the Superintendent on Feb. 14, 2025, neither race, ethnicity, nor sex can be considered as a factor for admission at any point during the admissions process, including qualification and acceptance,” according to the court filing made public Friday.
The decision comes after a federal judge ruled in December that the academy could continue considering race in its admissions process. In that case, the judge found that military cohesion and other national security factors mean the school should not be subjected to the same standards as civilian universities.
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