As America celebrates its 250th, Smithsonian leader Lonnie Bunch treads a fine political line

By René Marsh, CNN

(CNN) — For over a year, Lonnie Bunch III, the head of the storied Smithsonian Institution, has been at the center of a political tempest.

Under President Donald Trump’s second administration, the world’s largest museum institution and a key voice in shaping the narrative of America’s history has been under pressure to remove “woke” ideology.

In a rare interview on Thursday, Bunch insisted the Smithsonian has maintained its autonomy even as the institution has “given everything that’s been asked” by the White House for its review of the institution and its exhibits.

So far, Bunch told CNN, the White House has not requested any changes or updates.

“We wait to hear,” he said.

After largely staying out of the public eye as he contends with Trump’s criticism of the Smithsonian, Bunch has helped curate his first exhibition since becoming its secretary – a display to mark America’s 250th birthday.

While Trump looms large over other celebrations planned for this summer, the historian and first Black American to serve as head of the Smithsonian says the administration did not play any part in his thinking or selections.

“My goal is that history is driven by scholarship, not partisanship,” he said. “The Smithsonian always does its own scholarship. It’s always driven by that. We have always worked with different administrations, but it’s always about what our scholarship tells us.”

The exhibition, titled “American Aspirations,” is on view beginning June 2 at the iconic Smithsonian castle, which had been closed since 2023 for renovations, but will reopen temporarily.

It brings together objects from across the Smithsonian’s collections to explore what the institution calls the “ideals, ambitions, and contradictions” that have shaped the United States.

Among the objects that will be featured are the desk where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence; Amelia Earhart’s flight suit; a poster written by abolitionist Frederick Douglass; and the first gold nugget to have been discovered during the California gold rush of 1848.

Bunch told CNN an early model of the Statue of Liberty was among the items he especially wanted to include, as it exemplifies how the story of American struggle has evolved. He pointed to the broken shackles at her feet – a symbol of liberation and the abolition of slavery.

He noted that today, many see the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of America’s embrace of immigration – but “it was initially created because people in France were so impressed that America ended slavery,” he said.

“So really what you want people to understand is how this is all interconnected. And that’s why it’s so beautiful to me,” he said.

The original handwritten draft of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, on loan from Villanova University, and Harriet Tubman’s hymnal will also be on view during part of the exhibition run due to their fragility.

Trump has previously vented frustrations with the Smithsonian’s handling of slavery in America, writing in a social media post last August that “the Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

While the “American Aspirations” does not ignore slavery, the exhibition, like the larger American narrative, is “not a story of just slavery,” Bunch said. “It’s a story of America’s struggle to be the nation that we want it to be.”

“America is a work in progress,” he added. “Its greatest strength is not to think that it’s arrived at the promised land but … we continue to do to work towards a better America.”

Yet the exhibition’s emphasis on hope and aspirations for democracy come at a moment when critics accuse the Trump administration of eroding those ideals.

CNN previously reported that some artists had felt concerned by what they saw as an atmosphere of “censorship” at the Smithsonian’s museums.

Bunch, for his part, told CNN he believes that “90% of the Smithsonian is exactly where you want it to be.”

“There are always changes because basically there are exhibits that get upgraded,” he said. “The great importance of the Smithsonian is that what we want people to do is grapple with nuance and complexity.”

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