Lonnie G. Bunch III, historian, author and educator, founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, is one of the museum profession's leading writers and thinkers. In this collection of his work from the mid-1980s to the present, including new chapters written for this book, Bunch presents a personal and passionate view of American history, "the Gordian knot" of race relations, and the role of the museum in shaping the perspective of a nation.