CANCELLED! March 31 – America at 250: History, Memory, and Truth
*This event has been cancelled and will likely be re-scheduled for Fall 2026
America at 250: History, Memory, and Truth
A Conversation with Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Tuesday, March 31, 6pm (doors open at 5:15pm)
Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington St.
Free & open to the public
Museums are the classrooms of our country. They play a crucial role in helping us understand the nation’s complex past. Join us for a dynamic conversation with Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House Center for Journalists, as they reflect on the significance of the 250th anniversary of the United States. At a moment in which discussions about our shared past and collective future feel especially urgent, this event offers an opportunity to learn from a leader who has devoted his career to informing and inspiring Americans to strive for the public good.
Q&A will follow and copies of Secretary Bunch’s book “A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump” will be available for purchase.
Lonnie G. Bunch III is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian. He assumed his position June 16, 2019. As Secretary, he oversees 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education units and centers. Two new museums—the National Museum of the American Latino and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum—are in development. Bunch was the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Bunch chronicled the creation of the museum in his book A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump and is the first historian to be Secretary of the Institution. Since 2024, Bunch has been Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast. A member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Bunch received France’s highest award, The Legion of Honor, in 2021.
Lynette Clemetson is Director of Wallace House Center for Journalists, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists at the University of Michigan. She came to the university from NPR where she was Senior Director of Strategy and Content Initiatives. Her career in journalism spans newspapers, magazines and audio across a range of platforms. As a reporter, she was a Washington-based correspondent for The New York Times and Newsweek. Prior to her domestic correspondent work, she was an international correspondent for Newsweek based in Hong Kong, where she covered the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. She moved into digital strategy and leadership in 2008 as the founding managing editor of TheRoot.com, launched for The Washington Post Company with Henry Louis Gates Jr. She is also the former Director of Content Strategy at Pew Center on the States.
This 2026 Marc and Constance Jacobson Lecture is presented by the Institute for the Humanities in partnership with Wallace House Center for Journalists. Additional support provided by the Initiative for Democracy & Civic Empowerment, Life-Changing Education, Museum Studies Program, U-M Library, and the U-M Museum of Art.
