Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch resigns amid attacks from Trump administration

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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September 8, 2026

Deena Zaru & Elizabeth Thomas, ABC News

Lonnie G. Bunch III, Founding Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, moderates a panel on the “Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement: Views from the Front Line” at the Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library. (Lauren Gerson.)

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch is stepping down from his position, the institution said Tuesday, after seven years of leading the world’s largest museum, education and research complex.

“I have fought for as long as I can. I love this country and I love the Smithsonian and I will always work to defend our more perfect Union,” Bunch told ABC News in a statement, confirming his resignation on Tuesday.

Bunch’s resignation comes amid mounting attacks against the Smithsonian from the Trump administration, which has accused Smithsonian leadership of presenting a “radical view” of American history and threatening to withhold federal funds and support.

“It is with very mixed emotions and heartfelt gratitude that I announce my retirement from the Smithsonian,” Bunch said in a statement. “I have spent nearly half of my life working at and being part of the Smithsonian family, and what a privilege it has been. There is no place like the Smithsonian—it has been one of the great loves of my life, and I am extraordinarily proud of what we have accomplished together. I leave with pride and sadness, gratitude and joy, and with enormous confidence in the people who will carry this remarkable institution forward.”

Bunch, who has been a part of the Smithsonian Institution for the past 38 years, was named secretary in June 2019, making him the first African American and first historian to serve in the role. Bunch did not reference the ongoing attacks from the White House in his parting statement.

Continue reading about the amazing legac y of Secretary Lonnie Bunch.

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