Confluences Make Our Commons

It's been a challenging three weeks. We were told our federal funding - a third of our budget and the bedrock for our entire operation for 50 years - had been terminated. We moved into high gear to let everyone know what had happened. We asked for help (and are still asking for help), reaching out to Congress to reinstate our funding. We issued a fundraising appeal.  We cut our budget, weeding down everything we could with the exception of staff members. We hosted a Zoom gathering for our grantees and program partners to share information and answer questions. I did a lot of interviews with terrific journalists from around the state. We also continue to deliver scheduled programs and plan new ones.

Without a doubt, our struggle to preserve public funding is a fight worth taking on. We believe that a state that centers the humanities will be just, creative, and connected.

The best thing we can do while this fight unfolds is to continue to connect the community of people who make - and care about - history, heritage, culture, and arts. Which is why in the midst of this maelstrom, I headed to Cairo, Illinois, to join Legacy Training, the Cairo Historic Preservation Project, for Confluences.

If you haven't travelled to the area recently (or ever), it's a breathtakingly beautiful part of the state. I was stunned by the gloriously blooming yellow fields of butterweed, a native, toxic, wildflower that carpets pastures, roadsides, and no-till agricultural fields in gold. I saw bald eagles, armadillos (they've expanded their territory north), and innumerable box tortoises and snapping turtles trying to cross the road in search of company.

I visited Ft. Defiance, the staging area for the launch of the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition. There, I learned that southern Illinois - Cairo and Anna in particular - includes part of the Trail of Tears. I tried to find the location where John Lewis knelt in protest of the segregated public pool in his early days at SNCC.

I visited the most beautiful library with a jewel of a children's center and went on a guided tour led by Don Patton. Best of all, for two days I was in community with dozens of people  - historians, musicians, folklorists, teachers, students, journalists, environmentalists, artists - who are fascinated by and passionate about the region formed by the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Together, we made a real "public square."

DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, is working to dismantle the agencies that form our American public square. The taxes that are redistributed as grants through the National Archives, Smithsonian, Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) form flagstones of that square. One by one, these agencies' staff and funding are being chiseled away.

The humanities are so important to our ability to function at home and as a leader on the world stage, a federal agency - the National Endowment for the Humanities - was established in 1965 to ensure our democracy has "the wisdom and vision" that the humanities provide. What are the humanities? Anything that humanizes us. They include history, art, heritage, culture, philosophy, journalism, poetry, folklore... you get the idea.

The NEH was set up with the assurance that a portion of its annual budget would go directly to each US state and territory, so there would be local control of federal dollars. This is "statutory;" it's required by law. In our state, Illinois Humanities is the nonprofit charged with this responsibility. Illinois Humanities especially focuses on making sure small towns, rural communities, and adults living on low incomes have access to programs that otherwise wouldn't be available.

But beyond economics, something deeper is being eroded: the creativity and connection the humanities uniquely provide. In cutting our funding - and the funding of partners at museums, libraries, archives, and schools - DOGE insists that what we provide no longer fits the frame of the administration's priorities. What falls outside this frame? Storytellers, historians, librarians, musicians, and artists, the ideas, documents, images, and perspectives which remind us of who we have been, and which enable us to imagine who we might yet become. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities has been attacked in the past. The public fought back and won. The tactics? Insistent calls by people to their elected officials; bipartisan backing in Congress; vocal, visible support in all corners of life; grassroots advocacy and alliances.

Illinois Humanities is working to ensure the sudden cuts do not interrupt planned programs or weaken our partnerships throughout the state. We are committed to doing our best to deliver on our role as the state's champion for the humanities despite these formidable headwinds.

Last night in Springfield, our state's new Poet Laureate was announced. We are looking forward to Mark being in residence with Illinois Humanities throughout his term. On May 3, the community of Cairo will host its fourth annual Magnolia Celebration to showcase, celebrate, and commemorate the powerful history and future of the region. On June 22nd in Murphysboro, there will be a program about our state's coal miners. On May 28th, we'll hold our next People's Salon in Chicago. These gatherings are what it looks like when we make and protect our public square.

In a state of 13 million people, all of us face a choice: allow these attacks to grind down the stones of our common ground or gather strength as a community to claim our commons. Organizers of the Civil Rights Movement had a saying, "Beware the revolution that comes singing." Let our response be a resounding chorus affirming that Illinois’s communal hearth, even amid crisis, will not crumble.