Lonnie Bunch

Bunch was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1952 to Lonnie Bunch II, a science and chemistry public school teacher, and Montrose Bunch, a third-grade public school teacher, both graduates of Shaw University, one of the oldest HBCUs in the South. He grew up in Belleville, New Jersey, where his family were the only African Americans in their neighborhood. His grandfather, a former sharecropper, moved into the area as one of the first black dentists in the region. As a child, he experienced racism from white teenagers in his neighborhood. Bunch credits his childhood experiences with local Italian immigrants and his reading of biographies as a youth with inspiring him to study history. He wanted to give a voice to those who were "anonymous" or not written about. Reflecting in 2011 on the early exposures, Bunch said: "I was in junior high, and we were reading biographies of historic figures. I remember one on Gen. ‘Mad Anthony’ Wayne, and one on Clara Barton, and Dorothea Dix. I thought, ‘Were there no histories of black people?’ One day, I was going through my grandfather's trunk and I found a book about black soldiers in the First World War. I devoured it."

Bunch graduated from Belleville High School in Belleville, New Jersey, in 1970. He attended Howard University and later transferred to the American University in Washington, D.C., where he earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in American and African-American history.

Bunch began working at the Smithsonian Institution while completing his master's degree. After graduating, he joined the University of Maryland faculty as a history professor. In 1983, he became the first curator at the California African American Museum. He worked at the National Museum of American History from 1989 until 1994 as a curator. From 1990 to 2000, he was also a professor in the Museum Studies and History departments at The George Washington University. He was promoted to associate director for curatorial affairs at the museum, before leaving in 2000 to become the president of one of the nation's oldest history museums, the Chicago Historical Society (Chicago History Museum), from 2001 to 2005. In Chicago, he led a successful capital campaign, and promoted outreach to diverse communities. One noted exhibit, Teen Chicago, focused on teenager life.

In 2005, Bunch was named the director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture. As founding director, he designed a program of traveling exhibitions and public events prior to the opening of the museum.

He also served on the Commission for the Preservation of the White House during the George W. Bush administration and was reappointed to the Commission by President Barack Obama in 2010.

On February 12, 2021, Bunch was appointed to the Congressionally-mandated Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America. He later withdrew from the commission for personal reasons prior to the swearing-in ceremony.

Bunch met his wife Maria Marable in graduate school. They have two daughters.