On April 2, 2025, the Mississippi Humanities Council received an odd e mail stating that each one federal funding was canceled as of April 1, 2025, efficient instantly!
Stuart Rockoff, government director of the Mississippi Humanities Council (MHC), mentioned: “We acquired a weird-looking e mail from the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) that in the first place didn’t look like official, stating that each one federal funding for MHC is canceled efficient instantly.” Rockoff subsequently discovered the e-mail is official. A million {dollars} in federal funding was taken from the Mississippi Humanities Council.
Consequently, this 53-year-old company not is ready to make funds to its grantees. These grantees function applications all through Mississippi.
Rockoff defined: “All open grants to grantees, roughly 35 by the Mississippi Humanities Council, are at current not in a position to be funded and are on pause for fiscal 2025. As a result of applications should be accomplished earlier than funds could be drawn down in 2025, we hope federal funding might be accessible quickly. We’re asking Mississippians to name and/or e mail our Congressmen and Senators to alert them to the scenario and ask them for his or her assist as a result of the Mississippi Humanities Council is our nice energy. The humanities inform the sincere fact of our historical past and tradition. The humanities are for everybody, particularly in rural areas the place there might not be a public library and for cities that do have libraries to have native audio system are available in and provide shows that inform our tales. Mississippians will need to have entry to our personal historical past and tradition, that are nationally important.”
One among MHC’s premier presenters, Jerry Jenkins, is an 11-year member of the Speaker’s Bureau. He mentioned: “The bureau is among the state’s biggest voices on the subject of letting the world know simply what our tradition and historical past means domestically and globally. The Mississippi Humanities Council provides life to tourism inside the state of Mississippi in order that native residents can inform their tales, thereby preserving household historical past alive for generations. I’ve made storytelling my forte as a speaker and orator of uplifting tales that construct character by faculty applications, summer season studying applications, and in libraries for adults. I focus on tales of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Sori, a Prince Amongst Slaves, a prince from Guinea who was made a slave in the US and was freed 40 years later…it is a story that many African Individuals and plenty of Mississippians would by no means find out about in any other case, particularly in underserved communities. The Mississippi Humanities Council program reaches far and vast.”
The Mississippi Humanities Council has all the time labored to supply applications reflecting our state’s historical past. MHC applications will not be DEI.
Rockoff mentioned: “We hope MHC funding could be restored sooner or later, nonetheless, our workers will proceed to hold out the applications as greatest we will for so long as we will.”
MHC provides distinctive academic applications such because the Jail E-book Golf equipment reaching incarcerated women and men in eight totally different prisons. These applications will proceed through the subsequent yr as a result of they’re funded by the Mellon Basis. Moreover, “The Nice Tales Membership” for youth will proceed as a result of current funding by the McRae Basis.