We live in an era of partisan rage, smartphone distraction and AI anxiety. To this fretful stew, let’s add social isolation, declining literacy rates and waning civic engagement. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, along with their network of state affiliates, were specifically created to counter such ill effects.
The White House budget for fiscal 2026, however, would essentially zero out funding for the national endowments. It’s possible Congress will choose to continue funding the agencies in budget bills moving through the House and Senate. Still, this comes after a DOGE-ordered disruption in April that severed millions of dollars in fiscal 2025 congressional appropriations from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to state humanities councils like mine. In August, a judge ruled that the Department of Government Efficiency cuts were “unlawful,” but that was just one step in a long legal process that has yet to restore the money.
At the Alabama Humanities Alliance, federal dollars represented about two-thirds of our annual budget. Other state councils even more reliant on NEH funds are all but shuttered. All of us are seeking to raise money from private sources — quickly — and are re-envisioning the future of our organizations (a.k.a., downsizing already lean operations).
I recognize that, in some ways, advocating for continued federal support of the humanities and arts could seem like a luxury when programs such as cancer research and support for indigent children are also at risk. But federal support for cultural programs has for decades been viewed, on a bipartisan basis, as a healthy antidote to the disruption and disorientation caused by rapid technological and social transformation.
For 51 years, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has helped Alabamians tell their stories, explore their past and present, and connect with each other. Our programs, designed to offer cultural and educational opportunities to people of all ages, are at risk.
As a nonprofit, nonpartisan NEH affiliate, we distribute grants to support storytelling projects and community gatherings. We partner with cities, counties, colleges and schools operating public programs on history and literature. We bring traveling Smithsonian exhibitions to the state. We help K-12 teachers with training and resources.
In Alabama last year, our programs and grant-funded events reached about 250,000 people on a total federal investment of $1.1 million. (Our operating budget is supplemented by state and private dollars, too.) Now, however, our grant-making is at a near standstill.
The same sort of work is being done where you live. There are 56 state and territorial humanities councils, and a like number of arts councils. My voice from Birmingham might not mean much to policymakers in D.C., so I’ll let a president do the talking:
“The humanities teach us who we are and what we can be,” President Ronald Reagan said in 1987. “They lie at the very core of the culture of which we’re a part, and they provide the foundation from which we may reach out to other cultures … . The arts are among our nation’s finest creations and the reflection of freedom’s light.”
Across the nation, councils like mine are working hard to keep that light burning.
Chuck Holmes is the executive director of the Alabama Humanities Alliance.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
