Description: Historian Lonnie Bunch is the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian’s 19th museum. Growing up with a love of history and a sense that African Americans deserved “a voice,” his education and early career gave him the research, museum, and management experience that allowed him to successfully develop an idea into a
Description: During debates about the Smithsonian’s founding, the idea of using James Smithson’s bequest for a botanic garden was included in several drafts of the bill considered by Congress. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore commissioned America’s preeminent landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing to design plans for the National Mall, including grounds around the Smithsonian Castle,