In early September 2026, Lonnie G. Bunch III stepped down as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, closing a tenure shaped by an enduring tension as old as public knowledge itself: who decides which stories a nation tells about itself, and by what authority. Caught between an administration that demanded celebration and a scholarly tradition that insists on completeness, Bunch's departure is less an ending than a reckoning — a moment that asks what cultural institutions are ultimately for, and whom they serve.