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Smithsonian African American Museum Director Placed on Leave
NationalNews (Business)

Smithsonian African American Museum Director Placed on Leave

Stacy M. BrownApril 2, 2025

By Stacy M. Brown BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent Kevin Young, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), is currently on personal leave and not leading the museum, according to Smithsonian officials. The leave began on March 14 and will continue for an “undetermined period,” according to Kevin Gover, the Smithsonian’s under-secretary for museums and culture. Shanita Brackett, the museum’s associate director of operations, has stepped in as acting director. Young has served as director since January 2021, succeeding Lonnie G. Bunch III after Bunch became Secretary of the Smithsonian. Under Young’s leadership, the museum

Smithsonian Regents Name Lonnie Bunch 14th Smithsonian Secretary
BusinessHistory

Smithsonian Regents Name Lonnie Bunch 14th Smithsonian Secretary

Sentinel News WireMay 30, 2019

The Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents announced today it elected Lonnie G. Bunch III, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, as the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian, effective June 16. Bunch is the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in September 2016. He oversees the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. Bunch’s election is unprecedented for the Smithsonian: He will be the first African American to

Famed for “Immortal” Cells, Henrietta Lacks is Immortalized in Portraiture at National Museum of African American History of Culture and the National Portrait Gallery
Daily BriefsNews

Famed for “Immortal” Cells, Henrietta Lacks is Immortalized in Portraiture at National Museum of African American History of Culture and the National Portrait Gallery

Sentinel News WireJanuary 18, 2019

Kadir Nelson’s portrait captures the grace and kindness of Henrietta Lacks while nodding to her enduring biomedical legacy. (NPG and NMAAHC, Gift from Kadir Nelson and the JKBN Group LLC) In life, Virginia-born Henrietta Lacks did not aspire to international renown—she didn’t have the luxury. The great-great-granddaughter of a slave, Lacks was left motherless at a young age and deposited at her grandpa’s log cabin by a father who felt unfit to raise her. Never a woman of great means, Lacks wound up marrying a cousin she had grown up with and tending to their children—one of whom was developmentally