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Giving Voice to the Anonymous
Chicago Reporter, The, July, 2001 by Stephanie Williams
At 48, Lonnie G. Bunch is making history.
As the new president of the Chicago Historical Society, he is the first African American to head one of the city's major non-ethnic museums.
But Bunch does not emphasize the historic significance of his role. Instead, he dwells on the significance of history. For Bunch, history is a way of life.
"I'm an historian first and foremost," he said. "History to me was both so real and so precious that I wanted to spend my time understanding it, sharing it with people and making it accessible to people."
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Bunch recalled an evening in the late-1950s when he sat on his grandfather's lap, reading a book in the basement of the family home in Belleville, N.J., where he grew up. His grandfather pointed to a photograph of children. Bunch, about 5 at the time, remembered the photo caption identified the children as "anonymous." His grandfather, Lonnie Griffith Bunch Sr., said, "Isn't it a shame that people could live their lives, die and just be known as anonymous?"
"Now [at the time], I had no idea I'd be an historian, but something about that moment stuck with me," Bunch explained. "In a way it really is the roots of my becoming an historian. ... I see myself as somebody whose job it is to make the invisible visible, to give voice to the anonymous."
Bunch left his small hometown and became a highly regarded historian and museum administrator--key reasons, museum professionals said, he was selected to head the 145-year-old historical society, at 1601 N. Clark St. in Lincoln Park.
Bunch's appointment is especially notable because "the historical society was founded by the original movers and shakers of this city," said Sharon Gist Gilliam, vice chair of the society's board of trustees. Gilliam served on the search committee that unanimously chose Bunch.
"Because it is so old, and whether it is true or not today, certain people perceive it to be an institution with very old and Waspy roots," said Gilliam, who is also executive vice president of Unison Consulting Group and chairperson of the Chicago Housing Authority Board of Commissioners.
"Lonnie is one of the most highly respected and nationally known individuals in the profession," said Edward Able, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Museums, a Washington, D.C.-based institution that accredits and provides research for museums nationwide. "He is a great historian and a great motivator of people. ... Chicago is extremely lucky."
And Bunch "has both the academic credentials and the curatorial expertise," said M. Hill Hammock, chairman of the society's board and chief operating officer at LaSalle Banks. "Lonnie is extraordinarily well balanced, a great fit," he said. "Lonnie has a real passion for history ... and that's what really made the difference."
Dark-skinned with a slight beard and round face, Bunch has a fatherly, unassuming bearing that makes him very approachable.
He moves comfortably among his many roles: historian, museum executive, educator, author and family man. Next to being a family man, Bunch is most proud of his role as an historian. And while Bunch downplays his race, he is breaking ground in Chicago and the nation. Only a handful of black executives oversee the country's "mainstream" cultural institutions, industry experts say. And the nation's major museums have few people of color in the ranks of curators and board trustees.
Pussyfooting Around
In 2001, Chicago should not be "celebrating" such a "first," said Carlos Tortolero, executive director of The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, the Midwest's largest Mexican art museum, at 1852 W. 19th St. in Pilsen. "We should be on the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth," said the Mexican-American native of Chicago. "To have a first now tells us how far we haven't come."
Tortolero wrote about the lack of diversity in cultural institutions in the November/December 2000 issue of Museum News, a publication of the American Association of Museums. The museum community needs to stop "pussyfooting around" and integrate, he wrote.
Many in the nation's cultural community mistakenly believe they have already achieved diversity. "There are some [industry] people who feel the issue has had its run," Tortolero said, but if you look at curatorial staffs, directors and presidents, museum leadership is "still lily white."
Last summer, Bunch wrote in Museum News that in the 1970s "the museum field was awash in whiteness," and even now "the profession I love has to make the commitment to change." He called on museums to recruit, hire, select and foster the professional growth of a more diverse group of executives, staff and volunteers. Bunch suggested more internships and fellowships, and recommended that museums ally with community-based programs.
