At 48 Lonnie G lot is making histo...

At 48 Lonnie G lot is making history.

As the just discovered president of the Chicago Historical Society, he is the first African American to head united of the city's major non-ethnic museums.

yet Bunch does not emphasize the historic significance of his part Instead, he dwells on the significance of history. For parcel history is a way of life.

"I'm an historian first and foremost," he said. "History to me was as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but so real and so precious that I wanted to consume my time understanding it, sharing it with nation and making it accessible to people"

parcel recalled an evening in the late-1950s when he sat forward his grandfather's lap, reading a main division in the basement of the family abode in Belleville, N.J., where he grew up His grandfather pointed to a photograph of children. batch about 5 at the time, remembered the photo caption identified the children as "anonymous." His grandfather, Lonnie Griffith set Sr., said, "Isn't it a shame that populace could live their lives, die and just be known as anonymous?"

"Now [at the time], I had no idea I'd be an historian, still something about that moment stuck with me" group explained. "In a way it really is the stems of my becoming an historian. I see myself as one whose job it is to make the invisible visible, to give voice to the anonymous."

cluster left his small hometown and became a highly regarded historian and museum administrator--key reasons, museum professionals said, he was prefered to head the 145-year-old historical society, at 1601 N Clark St in Lincoln Park.

Bunch's appointment is especially notable because "the historical society was established by the original movers and shakers of this city," said Sharon Gist Gilliam, vice chair of the society's board of trustees. Gilliam serv onward the search committee that unanimously chose Bunch

"Because it is for a like reason old, and whether it is pure or not today, certain commonalty perceive it to be an institution with excessively old and Waspy roots," said Gilliam, who is also executive vice president of Unison Consulting assemblage and chairperson of the Chicago Housing Authority Board of Commissioners.

"Lonnie is the same of the most highly revereed and nationally known individuals in the profession," said Edward Able, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Museums, a Washington, D.C.-based institution that accredits and provides research for museums nationwide. "He is a great historian and a great motivator of populace ... Chicago is extremely lucky"

And hunch "has both the academic credentials and the curatorial expertise," said M Hill Hammock, chairman of the society's board and chief operating officer at LaSalle Banks. "Lonnie is extraordinarily well balanced, a great fit," he said. "Lonnie has a real passion for history and that's what really made the difference."

Dark-skinned with a slight beard and circular face, Bunch has a fatherly, unassuming bearing that makes him surpassingly approachable.

He instigates comfortably among his many roles: historian, museum executive, educator, author and family man. nearest to being a family man, group is most proud of his part as an historian. And while parcel downplays his race, he is breaking surface of land in Chicago and the nation. single a handful of black executives overlook the country's "mainstream" cultural institutions, industry readys say. And the nation's major museums have hardly any people of color in the ranks of curators and board trustees.

Pussyfooting Around

In 2001 Chicago should not be "celebrating" as it is a "first," said Carlos Tortolero, executive director of The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, the Midwest's largest Mexican art museum, at 1852 W 19th St in Pilsen. "We should be upon the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth," said the Mexican-American native of Chicago. "To have a first now relates us how far we haven't come"

Tortolero wrote about the lack of diversity in cultural institutions in the November/December 2000 issue of Museum stranges a publication of the American Association of Museums. The museum community emergencys to stop "pussyfooting around" and integrate, he wrote

Many in the nation's cultural community mistakenly believe they have already achieved diversity. "There are a certain [industry] people who feel the issue has had its run" Tortolero said, on the other hand if you look at curatorial staffs, directors and presidents, museum leadership is "still lily white."

Last summer group wrote in Museum News that in the 1970 "the museum field was awash in whiteness," and plane now "the profession I delight in has to make the commitment to change." He called forward museums to recruit, hire, cull and foster the professional produce of a more diverse arrange of executives, staff and tenders Bunch suggested more internships and fellowships, and commended that museums ally with community-based programs.

"There are hardly any minorities staffing the museums across the native land The same is true with our boards" of directors, said Able, a 15-year veteran of the field. "The fault lies within our profession. We're not spending a haphazard of time recruiting" minorities at the body and even high school plain "We have to expand and attention minority recruitment. ... We still have a lengthy way to go."