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Article: Piecing Together a People's History; African American Museum's Director Is a Man on a Mission
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 4, 2009
- Author:
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The discoveries can come through late-night e-mails,
conversations with elderly black women over weak tea, or at a
community center where someone brings in their great-grandfather's
diploma.
Such is life at the moment for Lonnie G. Bunch III, the founding
director of the National Museum of African American History and
Culture, who is working diligently to bring essential documents and
artifacts of the black American story to the public. So far he has a
Selmer trumpet once owned by jazz innovator Louis Armstrong, a Jim
Crow railroad car from outside Chattanooga, Tenn., a sign from a
Nashville bus that reads "This part of bus for colored race," an
1850 slave badge from Charleston, S.C., and ...