[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 112 (Thursday, June 29, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3847-S3848]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO DR. LONNIE G. BUNCH III

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, 
DC has as its newest treasure, the National Museum of African American 
History and Culture. It is the work of many and would not be there 
without its founding director, Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III.
  I know as a member of the Smithsonian board of regents that Dr. Bunch 
is the single most important person bringing about this magnificent 
museum and one which will speak to the history of African Americans in 
this country more than anything else.
  We all know that history has seen an enormous amount of pain caused 
by violence and deaths resulting from racism in America. When you come 
into that moving museum, as I have many times, the last thing you would 
expect is someone who would leave the ultimate symbol of racism, a 
noose, hanging in it. I know the dismay felt by people of all races 
when it was found, but probably what has helped the healing the most is 
the op-ed of June 23, 2017, in the New York Times, written by my 
friend, Lonnie Bunch.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the op-ed, so 
that all can see it and so that it will be part of the history of the 
U.S. Senate.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, June 23, 2017]

         A Noose at the Smithsonian Brings History Back to Life

                        (By Lonnie G. Bunch III)

       The person who recently left a noose at the National Museum 
     of African American History and Culture clearly intended to 
     intimidate, by deploying one of the most feared symbols in 
     American racial history. Instead, the vandal unintentionally 
     offered a contemporary reminder of one theme of the black 
     experience in America: We continue to believe in the 
     potential of a country that has not always believed in us, 
     and we do this against incredible odds.
       The noose--the second of three left on the National Mall in 
     recent weeks--was found late in May in an exhibition that 
     chronicles America's evolution from the era of Jim Crow 
     through the civil rights movement. Visitors discovered it on 
     the floor in front of a display of artifacts from the Ku Klux 
     Klan, as well as objects belonging to African-American 
     soldiers who fought during World War I. Though these soldiers 
     fought for democracy abroad, they found little when they 
     returned home.
       That display, like the museum as a whole, powerfully 
     juxtaposes two visions of America: one shaped by racism, 
     violence and terror, and one shaped by a belief in an America 
     where freedom and fairness reign. I see the nooses as 
     evidence that those visions continue to battle in 2017 and 
     that the struggle for the soul of America continues to this 
     very day.
       The people responsible knew that their acts would not be 
     taken lightly. A noose is a symbol of the racial violence and 
     terror that African-Americans have confronted throughout 
     American history and of the intensity of resistance we've 
     faced to any measure of racial equality. During slavery, one 
     of the main purposes of lynching was to deter the enslaved 
     from escaping to freedom. But lynching did not end with 
     slavery; it was also a response to the end of slavery. It 
     continued from the 1880s until after the end of World War I, 
     with more than 100 people lynched each year. So prevalent was 
     this atrocity that between 1920 and 1938, the N.A.A.C.P. 
     displayed a banner at its national headquarters that read 
     simply, ``A man was lynched yesterday.''
       Lynching was not just a phenomenon of the American South or 
     the Ku Klux Klan. And in many places, as black people fought 
     for inclusion in American life, lynchings became brutal 
     spectacles, drawing thousands of onlookers who posed for 
     photographs with the lifeless bodies. This collective memory 
     explains why the noose has become a symbol of white supremacy 
     and racial intimidation.
       So, what does it mean to have found three nooses on 
     Smithsonian grounds in 2017? A

[[Page S3848]]

     noose inside a Missouri high school? A noose on the campus of 
     Duke University? Another at American University?
       As a historian, who also happens to be old enough to 
     remember ``Whites Only'' signs on motels and restaurants that 
     trumpeted the power of laws enforcing segregation, I posit 
     that it means we must lay to rest any notion that racism is 
     not still the great divide.
       As someone who has experienced the humiliating sting of 
     racial epithets and the pain of a policeman's blow--simply 
     because I was black and in a neighborhood not my own--I would 
     argue that it answers a naive and dangerous question that I 
     hear too often: Why can't African-Americans get over past 
     discrimination?
       The answer is that discrimination is not confined to the 
     past. Nor is the African-American commitment to American 
     ideals in the face of discrimination and hate.
       The exhibitions inside the museum combine to form a 
     narrative of a people who refused to be broken by hatred and 
     who have always found ways to prod America to be truer to the 
     ideals of its founders.
       In the process of curating these experiences, I have 
     acquired, examined and interpreted objects that stir feelings 
     of intense pain. Anger and sadness are always parts of this 
     work, but I never let them dominate it. Instead, I use them 
     to help me connect with the people who have suffered and 
     continue to suffer immeasurable pain and injustice, while 
     clinging to their humanity and their vision of a better 
     country.
       I see the nooses in the same way. They are living history. 
     Viewed through this lens, they are no less a part of the 
     story the museum tells than the Klan robes, the slave 
     shackles small enough to fit a child, the stretch of rope 
     used to lynch a Maryland man in 1931 or the coffin used to 
     bury the brutally murdered Emmett Till.
       If you want to know how African-Americans continue to 
     persevere and fight for a better America in the face of this 
     type of hatred, you need only visit the museum, where the 
     noose has been removed but the rest of the remarkable story 
     of our commitment to overcome remains. Anyone who experiences 
     the National Museum of African American History and Culture 
     should leave with that realization, as well as the 
     understanding that this story is continuing. The cowardly act 
     of leaving a symbol of hate in the midst of a tribute to our 
     survival conveyed that message as well as any exhibit ever 
     could.

                          ____________________