Lonnie Bunch, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution - Although
it will be a monumental task, the past is replete with examples of
ordinary people working together to overcome seemingly insurmountable
challenges. History is a guide to a better future and demonstrates that
we can become a better society—but only if we collectively demand it
from each other and from the institutions responsible for administering
justice.
Frederick Douglass famously said, “Those who profess to favor freedom
and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without
ploughing the ground….The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a
physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle.” At this
pivotal moment when the eyes of the nation and the world are upon
Minneapolis, will we join the struggle to seek justice and equality?
Will we heed the call of courageous figures throughout history who spoke
out against slavery, marched on for voting rights, and sat in for basic
equality? Will we challenge the nation to live up to its founding
ideals? In the memory of those taken from us and for the good of the
country, I hope that we do.
Bunch is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the
first African American and first historian to serve as head of the
Smithsonian.
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