Description: By turns inspiring, funny, frustrating, quixotic, and bittersweet, this is Founding Director Bunch's deeply personal tale of the challenges and rewards of bringing a nationally acclaimed institution to life.
Review Quotes: "Seamlessly weaves the personal and political work that went into envisioning, planning, funding, building, and opening the museum." --Library Journal, starred review
"Like the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History itself, its inaugural director's memoir tells a challenging and ultimately inspiring story of struggle, perseverence, and uplift." --Booklist "One reads here a great historian reaching for the nitty gritty and the mountain tops of American history in ways that end much better than Albion Tourgée's 'fool's errand.'" --David W. Blight "This fascinating memoir provides the crucial institutional history that NMAAHC so richly deserves." --Henry Louis Gates Jr. "America owes Bunch a debt for creating the museum, now we are in his debt, again, for this elegant story of triumph." --Scott Pelley "A fascinating depiction of a dreamer and his destiny as he works faithfully to bring to fruition a home not just for artifacts, but finally a resting place of memory and spirit." --Angela Bassett "In this engaging and candid book, Lonnie Bunch enables us to understand how he and a community of coworkers and supporters created a twenty-first century museum of which all Americans can be proud." --Eric Foner "This stirring tale of a labor of love should be read by anyone and everyone who wants to understand how to fight for representation of that which matters most." --Darren Walker "In A Fool's Errand Lonnie Bunch memorializes the fulfillment of a long overdue undertaking." --Congressman James E. Clyburn "[Bunch] has brought to life a magnificent museum." --William S. Cohen "This book begins like a mystery, unfolds like a thriller, and ends like a romance novel of love for a people whose heritage has been hostage to hostility and ignorance. Lonnie Bunch led in creating a monumental institution that will stand the test of time." --Michael Eric Dyson