A Fool's Errand

Starred review from July 1, 2019

From its preface through its final pages, this debut by Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), seamlessly weaves the personal and political work that went into envisioning, planning, funding, building, and opening the museum. The author describes his own efforts, noting for instance that he chooses to ride the service elevators in the NMAAHC to interact with all the people involved in its operations, inserting epigraphs from figures as wide ranging as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Winston Churchill, Langston Hughes, and his own grandmother. Throughout, Bunch nudges readers to think about three coeval artifacts, and placemaking or public visibility. These anchor many of his stories and demonstrate the multifaceted impact of the NMAAHC. VERDICT While centering on a specific narrative, this book serves as much more than an overview of the NMAAHC and will not solely appeal to museum curators or academics, as Bunch addresses the ways in which public spaces must be disrupted and dehierarchized to change cultural narratives.--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2019
Like the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History itself, its inaugural director's memoir tells a challenging and ultimately inspiring story of struggle, perseverance, and uplift. Bunch, now secretary of the entire Smithsonian Institution, begins with the new museum's dedication ceremony in 2016 and then bounces back in time to the early twentieth century, when a group of African American Civil War veterans first proposed a place on the National Mall to expand America's knowledge about the black community. Following a brief history of the project's various fits and starts, Bunch focuses on his experience as director of a museum that, when he took the position in 2005, did not exist and how he developed the kernel of an idea into one of the most diversely visited museums in the world. With frankness and optimism, he recounts tireless work fundraising, siting the building, selecting an architect, assembling a collection, and devising narratives to interpret that collection for visitors. Ever the historian, he impressively contextualizes his unique and fascinating adventures within a broad spectrum of recent American events and concerns.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)