On April 3, funding for the humanities in our community evaporated.
Across Indiana, money for programs that teach students local history, equip libraries to expand their offerings and fuel civic engagement vanished. Also lost were funds that supply classroom resources, support cultural festivals and enhance Hoosiers’ ability to connect with each other, their community, state, nation and world.
All of this was swept away when Indiana Humanities received notice from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) — after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) descended on that organization — terminating congressionally-approved grant funding.
You may not think about the NEH on a daily basis, but I assure you that you, your children and your community have been impacted by the essential and ground-breaking programs throughout Indianapolis that this organization supports. Many people have not connected the dots between the NEH and the inaugural Proof: A Midwest Lit Fest, developed by local poets Mitchell L.H. Douglas and Chantel Massey.
Some in our community might not have realized that NEH funding helped statewide screenings of the film Root Black by Manon Voice and Deonna Weatherly, which explores the complex relationships between Black communities and the natural world. And I understand if you didn’t hear about cuts at a federal institution and realize it would affect things like the public lectures and panels involving author Maurice Broaddus, filmmaker Jerald Harkness, and Roberts Settlement descendant Bryan Glover.
After all, when you attend such events and programs, it’s not people from Washington, D.C., you see “running” things. It’s our neighbors, our librarians, our local bookstores and staff from Indiana Humanities who are hosting.
Nonetheless, local community programs like those are exactly what’s being affected by these federal cuts. Funding for enriching initiatives like these has been suspended because NEH support for the operations of Indiana Humanities — and state humanities councils all around the country — has been terminated.
In 2024, Indiana Humanities provided 127 organizations across Indiana with more than $317,000 in direct grants and program support. Each dollar invested by Indiana Humanities in these organizations generated $2.37 in community investment. In 2023 and 2024, in our Congressional District (IN-7) alone, Indiana Humanities provided more than $215,000 in funding to 92 program partners. This includes the preservation of African American historic sites by Indiana Landmarks and talks by local scholars and historians sponsored by Freetown Village.
These dollars have even supported my own past research on the history of the first and only Black YWCA in Indianapolis and made possible the installation of a historic marker. These investments in our local libraries, museums, and cultural organizations resulted in 310 events that deepened our understanding of local history, helped to strengthen our bonds to each other and encouraged us to imagine better futures and ways of being in the world.
NEH funding helps to improve our quality of life by doing things like increasing civic involvement, fostering understanding, connecting isolated citizens and giving people in rural communities and under-resourced neighborhoods opportunities often found only in bigger and wealthier areas. In these and other ways, NEH funds are more than just line items in a federal budget; they are a catalyst for the development of meaningful programs, updated parks, and invigorated citizens in almost every neighborhood in Indianapolis and many counties throughout Indiana.
That’s why we must let our leaders know that we don’t want to lose the humanities’ funding. It is essential for our children, our neighbors and the future of our democracy.
So, speak up on behalf of the humanities. Call and write your congressional representatives and tell them these programs are important to you. Spread the word at your PTA meeting, your church parking lot and on social media. Tell people you see every day, and ask them to raise their voices as well.
In other words, engage in the humanities for the sake of our future and the city and state we call home. Get started at indianahumanities.org.
Dr. Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds is a board member for Indiana Humanities, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies at the Indiana University Indianapolis School of Liberal Arts, and Associate Director for the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture.
If it is that important then get money from rich blacks to fund it
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