Awarded Grants

Marilyn Hatza Memorial SHINE Grant Program

Grant Awards of $10,000

Allegany:

Allegany Museum

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Evergreen Heritage Center Foundation

Historic Frostburg, a Maryland Main Street Community

Anne Arundel:

Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation

Captain Avery Museum

Chesapeake Children’s Museum

Lost Towns Project

Baltimore City:

Baltimore Architecture Foundation

Baltimore Heritage

CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth (Fund for Educational Excellence)

CityLit Project

Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center

Friends of 612-614 S. Wolfe Street

Friends of President Street Station 

Greenmount Senior Center

Komite Ayiti

Makeup Museum

Maryland Museums Association

Maryland Women’s Heritage Center

Mount Clare Museum House

Moving History

Writers in Baltimore Schools

Muse 360 Arts

Raymond Banks ‘A Way With Words’ Foundation

Sankofa Children’s Museum of African Cultures

Yellow Arrow Publishing Co.

Baltimore:

Baltimore Association of Nepalese in America

Baltimore County Historical Society, Inc. (dba Historical Society of Baltimore County)

Maryland Lynching Memorial Project 

NeighborSpace of Baltimore County

Sisterhood Agenda

Todd’s Inheritance Historic Site

Calvert:

Bayside History Museum

Launching Educational Assistance Program Forward (LEAP) Forward

Carroll:

Downtown Sykesville Connection

Historical Society of Carroll County Maryland

The Union Mills Homestead

Cecil:

Historical Society of Cecil County

Charles:

Farm Heritage Conservancy

The Historical Society of Charles County

Life Journeys Writers Club

Dorchester:

Dorchester County Historical Society

Groove City Black Heritage & Culture Group

Harrisville Malone Cemetery Maintenance Fund

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance (NHPA)

Frederick:

African-American Resources Cultural Heritage Society (AARCH)

Catoctin Furnace Historical Society

City Youth Matrix

Global Z Recording Project

Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area

Maryland Foreign Language Association

Women Solve

Garrett:

Garrett County Historical Society

Mountain Lake Park Historical Association

Harford:

Harmer’s Town Art Center

The Havre de Grace Colored School Museum and Cultural Center

The Havre Grace Maritime Museum

Hosanna Community House (dba Hosanna School Museum)

Lower Susquehanna Heritage Greenway

Howard:

Chinese American Parent Association of Howard County

Cultura Plenera

Howard County Historical Society

Indian Cultural Association of Howard County

Korean Culture and Art of MD

League of Korean Americans

Kent:

G.A.R. Post #25 (Sumner Hall)

Montgomery:

Bethesda Historical Society

The Civic Circle

Docs in Progress

The Giving Square

Sugarland Ethno History Project

Prince George’s:

Bold Beautiful Brilliant Girls Youth Empowerment Group

Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts

EducArte

Fuel Incorporated

National Capital Radio and Television Museum

National Museum of Language

Queen Anne’s:

Grasonville Community Center

Kennard Alumni Association

Touchstones Discussion Project

Somerset:

Somerset County Historical Society

St. Mary’s:

Friends of the St. Clement’s Island and Piney Point Museums

Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions

Talbot:

Chesapeake Film Festival

Mid-Shore Community Foundation – Bellevue Passage Museum

St. Michaels Museum

The Water’s Edge Museum

Washington:

Camp Ritchie Museum

Urban Rural Action

Wicomico:

Eleven 21

Worcester:

Beach to Bay Heritage Area

Berlin Heritage Foundation

Delmarva Discovery Center & Museum

Furnace Town Foundation

SHINE Grant Program

Grant Awards of $10,000

Allegany:
Allegany Museum
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
Evergreen Heritage Center Foundation
Frostburg Museum Association
Historic Frostburg, a Maryland Main Street Community

Anne Arundel:
Chesapeake Children’s Museum
Galesville Community Center
Lost Towns Project

Baltimore City:
Afro Charities
CityLit Project
Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center
Friends of President Street Station
Maryland Women’s Heritage Center
Moving History
Muse Arts 360
The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum
Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Association

Baltimore:
Baltimore County Historical Society
Historic East Towson
Historic Hampton
Maryland’s Four Centuries Project

Calvert:
Launching Educational Assistance Program Forward Leap Forward

Carroll:
Historical Society of Carroll County Maryland

Charles:
African American Society of Charles County
Farm Heritage Conservancy
Maryland Veterans Museum at Patriot Park

Dorchester:
Dorchester County Historical Society
Groove City Black Heritage & Culture Group

Frederick:
African-American Resources Cultural Heritage Society
Catoctin Furnace Historical Society
Global Z Recording Project
Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area

Garrett:
Garrett Lakes Arts Festival

Harford:
Hosanna Community House

Howard:
Howard County Historical Society

Kent:
G.A.R. Post #25 (Sumner Hall)
Minary’s Dream Alliance

Montgomery:
Bethesda Historical Society
The Civic Circle
Docs in Progress

Prince George’s:
Anacostia Trails Heritage Area
National Museum of Language

Queen Anne’s:
Kennard Alumni Association

St. Mary’s:
Friends of the St. Clement’s Island and Piney Point Museums

Talbot:
The Waters Edge Museum

Washington:
Camp Ritchie Museum
Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum

Wicomico:
Eleven 21

Worcester:
Beach to Bay Heritage Area
Delmarva Discovery Center & Museum

 

SHARP Recovery Grants

Grant Awards of $10,000

Allegany:
Allegany Museum
Cumberland Theatre
Evergreen Heritage Center Foundation
Frostburg Museum Association, Inc.
Historic Frostburg, a Maryland Main Street Community, Inc.

Anne Arundel:
Captain Avery Museum
Chesapeake Children’s Museum
Friends of the Rising Sun Inn
Galesville Community Center
Lost Towns Project, Inc.

Baltimore City:
CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth
CityLit Project
Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center
Maryland Women’s Heritage Center
Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive
Muse 360 Arts
New Lens
Poe Baltimore
Raymond Banks ‘A Way With Words’ Foundation
Sankofa Children’s Museum of African Cultures, Inc.
Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Association, Inc.
Writers in Baltimore Schools

Baltimore:
Baltimore County Historical Society, Inc.
Friends of Jerusalem Mill
Maryland Lynching Memorial Project
Preservation Alliance of Baltimore County
Sisterhood Agenda, Inc.
Writing Hearts, Inc.

Calvert:
Bayside History Museum
Friends of Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum

Carroll:
Downtown Sykesville Connection, Inc.
Union Mills Homestead Foundation, Inc.

Cecil:
Historical Society of Cecil County
Women’s Civic League of North East

Charles:
Farm Heritage Conservancy
Friends of Maxwell Hall Inc
Life Journeys Writers Club
Maryland Veterans Museum at Patriot Park
Neighborhood Creative Arts Center
Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco

Dorchester:
Alpha Genesis Community Development Corporation
Dorchester County Historical Society
Groove City Black Heritage & Culture Group Inc.
Richardson Maritime Museum, Inc.

Frederick:
African-American Resources Cultural Heritage Society (AARCH)
Brunswick Potomac Foundation, Inc.
Catoctin Furnace Historical Society
Frederick County Landmarks Foundation
Global Z Recording Project

Garrett:
Garrett Lakes Arts Festival

Harford:
The Friends of the Concord Point Lighthouse
The Havre de Grace Colored School Museum and Cultural Center, Inc.
The Historical Society of Harford County, Inc.
Hosanna Community House, Inc.
Susquehanna Museum of Havre de Grace, Inc.

Kent:
Eastern Shore Heritage, Inc.
G.A.R. Post #25, Inc. (Sumner Hall)
Historical Society of Kent County, Inc.

Montgomery:
Chevy Chase Historical Society
Docs In Progress
Menare Foundation, Inc.
Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation, Ltd.
Sugarland Ethno History Project, Inc.
Warren Historic Site Committee, Inc.

Prince George’s:
Bold Beautiful Brilliant Girls Youth Empowerment Group
Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts, Inc.
EducArte, Incorporated
Laurel Historical Society
National Capital Radio and Television Museum
National Museum of Language
Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center
Prince George’s County Historical Society, Inc.

Somerset:
Crisfield Heritage Foundation
Somerset County Historical Society

St. Mary’s:
Friends of St. Clement’s Island and Piney Point Museums
St. Mary’s County Historical Society

Talbot:
Oxford Museum
Talbot Historical Society
Tilghman Waterman’s Museum
Waters Edge Museum

Washington:
Boonsboro Historical Society
Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc.
Doleman Black Heritage Museum, Inc.
Friends of Tolson’s Chapel
Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum, Inc.
Washington County Historical Society

Worcester:
Beach to Bay Heritage Area, Inc.
Berlin Heritage Foundation, Inc.
Delmarva Discovery Center & Museum, Inc.
Friends of the Julia A. Purnell Museum
Furnace Town Foundation

 

July 2021 Mini Grant Awards

Banneker-Douglass Museum Foundation
Anti-Racism Training
Anne Arundel County
Grant Award: $1,200

In a continuous effort to dismantle oppressive systems and increase cultural competence, the BDM Anti-Racism Committee will present anti-racism training titled The Big Unequitable Picture: Criminal Justice, Education, and Voting Rights. During this training participants will: examine historical events, ideologies, and social structures and how they inform modern-day beliefs, bias, and perceptions; analyze concepts of racial identity, bias, privilege, and prejudice; reflect on their own identity, bias, privilege, and prejudices; identify strategies to engage in restorative conversations; and consider ways to integrate anti-racism work into their daily lives.

EducArte, Incorporated
Brazilian Choro Music: The Afro-Brazilian Origins of Samba and Bossa Nova
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $1,200

This lecture series will highlight the history of Latin and jazz music, particularly choro, Brazil’s first native musical genre, and how it shaped modern day Brazilian music. Attendees will learn about the emergence of choro music, the African and Black roots of choro music, and the characteristics of choro present in not only contemporary Brazilian music but also in contemporary American music. The project will consist of four lectures with each focusing on a different aspect of choro: the Black contributions to choro music; choro as an element of Brazilian national identity; the origins of choro in the African lundu and the European schottische; and the similarities, differences, and cross-pollination between American ragtime jazz and Brazilian choro. Each lecture will be followed by a Q&A session with participants.

Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center at North Brentwood
Remembering Our Roots: Civic Activism for Youth
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $1,200

The Prince George’s African American Museum, in partnership with the Prince George’s Lynching Memorial Project, will lead an interactive discussion about the history and legacy of lynching in Prince George’s County and the United States. The goal of the discussion is to empower students through learning what strides are being made to honor and provide justice for the victims and their families. Young people will deepen their knowledge of the history of Prince George’s County, exploring primary and secondary source materials along with a robust conversation to maximize engagement and encourage a deeper dive, leading to their direct involvement in the ongoing project.

Spring 2021 Major Grant Awards

African-American Resources Cultural Heritage Society (AARCH)
Digital Content to Expand Programming and Enhance Access for AARCH Audiences
Frederick County
Grant Award: $9,998

AARCH will plan, produce, and edit three video webinars that will be accessible through their website and social media platforms. The documentaries will be used to engage residents in meaningful conversations about how past history has shaped society and should shape our future. The discussions can be adapted for all ages and will be designed for use in schools and public forums.

Catoctin Furnace Historical Society
Braided Lives: Troublin de Water—Catoctin Furnace’s Enslaved through Poetry, Song & Narrative
Frederick County
Grant Award: $10,000

Braided Lives is a historically based program focused on the enslaved at Catoctin Furnace with a goal of facilitating understanding, empathy, and community. The first part of Braided Lives will be a 45-minute video for YouTube dissemination. This will begin an ongoing conversation and dialogue about race, slavery, and reparative action in the 21^st Century. The dialogue, thus initiated, will continue over moderated social media, facilitated by partners, and culminate in a fall 2021 in-person event (if safe).

CHARM
CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $10,000

CHARM will offer six virtual writing workshops to 60 young people during the 2021–22 school year. Text examples from local authors will be used in the workshops, as well as pieces by young Baltimoreans that have previously been published in CHARM magazine. Maryland educators will create a collection of writing resources for the website that can be used by writers during virtual and in-person instruction.

Chesapeake Film Festival
Chesapeake Film Festival: Great Stories Begin Here
Talbot County
Grant Award: $10,000

The 2021 online Chesapeake Film Festival will present 45 to 50 films to audiences over seven days. The films explore diverse subjects in short films, documentaries, dramas, comedies, environmental topics, and animation. The free virtual festival will take place 24/7 October 3–10, 2021. Discussion about films will take place during Q&A sessions on Zoom and Facebook Live. There will be 12 live after-screening discussions featuring the filmmakers.

Civic Works
Telling the Story of Enslaved People at Baltimore’s Clifton Mansion
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $10,000

Civic Works and partners will create an exhibit that explores the history of slavery at Clifton Mansion and the experience of enslaved people. This will be part of a larger project that includes revising existing tour scripts to reflect the research on how the building’s former owners enslaved people and benefitted financially from slavery in Maryland and holding educational events that provide in-depth examinations of these topics. The exhibit will be an opportunity for visitors to consider the role slavery played in historic spaces and an important step in acknowledging the role the building and its owners played in the systemic racism that continues today.

Docs In Progress
Silver Spring Screenings and Community Stories Festival
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $10,000

Silver Spring Screenings is a series of documentary film screenings including lectures and facilitated discussion to be held at Docs In Progress headquarters and/or virtually. In November 2021, we will screen approximately 25 documentaries as part of the Community Stories Film Festival. Public screening and discussion programs of documentaries will feature guest curators and presenters. The series will highlight films that relate to current issues in Silver Spring and throughout Maryland.

Historic Sotterley
Transcending Barriers to Common Ground
St. Mary’s County
Grant Award: $10,000

This project includes 15 virtual, in-person, or hybrid experiences led by scholars, content experts, historians, museum professionals, educators, filmmakers, and storytellers in the humanities. The scholars and content experts chosen to shape the lectures and discussions will provide insight to personal lived experiences dealing with everyday life, the workplace, and major systemic racism with which they have encountered, coped, and struggled. They also expose the places racism is hidden from view. They will bring practical ways to start making changes on a personal level that can spread to friends, family, neighbors, and community.

Joe’s Movement Emporium
Commissioning Project: Freedom Story
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $10,000

Freedom Story will bring historical content and subject matter to present-day relevance by drawing on content from A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War by historian Dr. William G. Thomas, III as well as present-day research conducted with descendants of the enslaved in Prince George’s County. The commissioning phase of Freedom Story will result in a production script and staged reading series. Multiple educational events will engage Maryland residents (school-aged children, college students, and community members).

Minary’s Dream Alliance
History of the Shantytowns on Kent Narrows
Caroline County
Grant Award: $10,000

The project will focus on a micro-community: Black seafood-packing workers and their families residing on Kent Narrows in the 20th Century. Some topics to be explored are how and why the shantytowns developed, how the communities functioned, how the residents coped with sub-standard living conditions, what happened to residents when the shanties were razed, and why this history is generally absent from public discourse about the history of the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry. The project will result in a narrative history of the Kent Narrows shantytown residents to include a virtual exhibit, a traveling exhibit, and printed materials.

Pride of Baltimore
A Deeper Dive: Pride of Baltimore’s 2021/2022 Speaker Series
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $9,500

The Deeper Dive Series will be a virtual conversation series that focuses on various aspects of maritime history, especially regarding Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) experiences during the War of 1812. Each virtual talk will feature one or more humanities scholars as guest(s) to be interviewed on a topic of their expertise. There will also be time for the interviewer to pull questions from the live audience for the guest to answer. Each talk will be recorded and made available on Pride’s social media for additional viewing. Along with the panel discussions, scholars will prepare conclusory written analyses to be shared publicly in a blog.

March 2021 Mini Grant Awards

City of Rockville Recreation & Parks
Glenview Mansion Cultural Programs
Montgomery County
Grant Award:  $1,175

The Glenview Mansion Cultural Programs include segments from the Glenview Mansion Speaker Series and Master Gardeners Video Series and will educate and enrich participants and deepen their understanding of diverse subjects relevant to life in the greater Rockville area. The programs will include contributions from subject matter experts and are posted electronically in various platforms. Discussions topics will include the “History and Preservation at the C&O Canal”, “The History of the Rockville Science Center: Providing Opportunities to Engage in Science and Engineering”, and a Juneteenth recording on “Community Gardening at Historic Lincoln Park”.

Susquehanna Museum of Havre de Grace
Up the Canal: Villages and People Along the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal
Harford County
Grant Award: $ 1,200

The project will create a new historical exhibit on “The Economics of the Canal,” which will open in spring, 2021. The exhibit will take viewers on a journey through time and space, traveling up the canal to tell the stories of the villages and communities located along it and to narrate everyday life in those villages from 1836 (when work on the canal began) through 1900 (when it was replaced by railroads).

 

Fall 2020 Major Grant Awards

Adkins Arboretum
Adkins Arboretum Indigenous Perspectives: Native Peoples-Native Plants
Caroline County
Grant Award: $10,000

 The Arboretum will partner with Washington College’s Eastern Shore Food Lab (ESFL) to create digital resources that engage the public with the Arboretum’s plant communities through the celebration of the food, craftwork, and medicinal traditions of Indigenous peoples. The ESFL will create web profiles and docent training material for 21 native plants, with the aim of inspiring the next era of residential landscaping with indigenous wisdom. In addition, the ESFL will produce 3 short virtual tour videos, each highlighting 7 plants of significance to native peoples.

CityLit Project
A Series of Master Classes, Craft Talks & Panel Discussions/2021 CityLit Festival
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $10,000

CityLit Project will host the 2021 daylong CityLit Festival designed to support literary artists throughout the region with special attention given to Maryland poets and writers. Sessions will include readings, conversations, lectures, playwriting, and critical talks on works of nonfiction. Events outside the festival will be in the form of Master Classes and craft intensives with revered poets and authors.

The Literacy Project
TEACH
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $10,000

TEACH is a short documentary film series that will contain two to three shorts. Grant funds will be used to complete research in Maryland-based archives, interview people in the Maryland area connected to Freedom Schools and include their testimonies in the film, and interview scholars that have researched film topics related to Maryland history and historical figures.

Main Street Connect
Conversations Matter
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $8,470

Main Street Connect will convene Conversations Matter, a virtual, weekly four-part series. Each virtual session will be 60–90 minutes long and include lectures and discussions. The participants will be provided with multiple readings, websites, resources, videos, documentaries, and poetry to explore prior to the series, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the topics explored throughout the series. A list of suggested resources will educate and prepare participants to fully engage in the series’ sessions.

Maryland Center for History & Culture
I’ll Overcome Someday, a Maryland Civil Rights Community Engagement Initiative
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $7,600

I’ll Overcome Some Day will be a semi-permanent interpretive exhibit and series of public programs that will challenge the traditional periodization of the Civil Rights era in Maryland by delving into the events around and challenges to the fight for equality from the Civil War era to today. The exhibit will remain in the MCHC galleries for at least three years with continued development of public programs, family activities, lectures, and discussions related to the struggle for Civil Rights in Maryland.

The Global Z Recording Project
Living and Dying with COVID-19: The Maryland Stories
Frederick County
Grant Award: $10,000

Global Z Recording Project will set up audio recording equipment at participating libraries across the state where Marylanders will be invited and encouraged to tell their personal stories, recording how COVID has impacted their lives—in the past, currently, and the projected future. The audio recordings will be distributed by NPR, hosted by Digital Maryland and the Maryland State Archives, and accessible to the public.

Sugarland Ethno History Project, Inc.
The Sugarland Virtual Historical Archaeology Exhibit, Teacher Training, and Curriculum Project
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $9,890

The project includes publishing the archaeological analysis from the artifacts and features discovered when excavating a Sugarland site; creating a curriculum module that includes an introduction to archaeology and historic preservation, a brief history of Sugarland, and selected data from the excavation; and a virtual exhibit that will highlight the history and archaeological findings and interpretation. A webpage will be available for visitors to ask questions or contribute information about Sugarland’s history.

November 2020 Mini Grant Awards

Afro Charities, Inc.
Reading the News, Spring 2021
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $1,200

The Baltimore-based AFRO American Newspapers is in its 129th year of publication. Reading the News is a new initiative from Afro Charities that will become a signature program of the organization. At the top of each program, the evening’s moderator will read excerpts from archival articles from the AFRO American Newspapers’ historic coverage. Virtual panel discussions and audio-visual lectures will unfold in response to the themes presented in the articles.

Baltimore Architecture Foundation
2021 Spring Lecture Series: Architecture & Culture
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $1,100

The Spring Lecture Series brings internationally renowned designers and thinkers to speak on a theme relevant to critical issues faced by Marylanders, particularly in Baltimore, such as sea level rise, equity and social justice, and envisioning the city’s future. Each program will include an out of town guest speaker and local thinkers and leaders. The series will explore the relationship between architecture and culture, how cultural values shape design and the world around us, and how architecture reflects society’s values.

InterAct Story Theatre Education Association
Wheaton InterActions: Community Stories in the time of COVID
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $1,200

InterAct Story Theatre will curate and produce a series of four digital broadcasts capturing and sharing the stories and lived experiences of the impact of Covid-19 on the lives of members of the Wheaton community.  This will include economic impact, cultural impact, and direct impact—notably food insecurity—on individuals and businesses representing large and diverse immigrant populations and on the ways community members are working together to survive and thrive in the time of Covid.

Shepherd University
The Maryland Loyalism Project
Statewide
Grant Award: $1,200

The Maryland Loyalism Project is a digital humanities initiative that makes primary sources related to Maryland loyalism publicly accessible while training undergraduate students in digital humanities skills. The project has created a digital archive of 150 loyalist Marylanders who fled the country during the American Revolution. The grant will enable the digitization of records from Maryland archives—including the Maryland State Archives, the Maryland Center for History and Culture, and the Harford County Historical Society—and the publication of these sources on the project site. The regional records include the names of enslaved people sold at public auction on confiscated loyalist estates.

July 2020 Mini Grant Awards

Coppin State University Development Foundation
A Long Walk for African American Women: 125-Year Journey for Voting Rights (1895 to 2020)
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $1,000

This project will be comprised of three master classes: The Black Women’s Club Movement and the Relationship between Black and White Suffragettes (1895 to 1915); The Fight for the Ballot from the 19th Amendment to the Voting Rights Act (1915 to 1965); and The Struggle Continues—Preserving and Protecting our Voting Rights (1965 to 2020).  Using an interactive virtual conferencing platform, the classes will be offered to people throughout the state.

Forest Woods Media Productions
The Poet and the Poem: Voices of Maryland Poets
Anne Arundel County
Grant Award: $1,000

The Poet and the Poem is an ongoing series that has been on public radio since 1977—founded, produced, and hosted by Maryland Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri. Each show presents a Maryland poet reading their work followed by conversation that parses and analyzes the writing process. Fifteen programs will be featured on the Maryland State Arts Council website, as well as on iTunes and public radio as a series in January 2021.

Prince George’s Community College Foundation
Black Culture Matters Series
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $1,000

Four Fall Community Lectures will offer historical and cultural context for a given topic, inviting the community to think about ways expanded historical knowledge might inform the racially charged present moment. Lecture topics include Celebrating While Black: From Juneteenth to Black August; Black Hair-itage, History & Healing; Writing Freedom: Black Literature and Racial Justice; and Media, Music, and Memory.  A Spring Symposium will serve as a critical rejoinder to the fall events.

Urban Rural Action
Deepening Connection and Understanding Across Maryland’s Urban/Rural Divide
Washington County
Grant Award: $1,000

This program is a collaboration among Urban Rural Action, Towson University’s Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility office, and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. To date, a cohort of 25 Maryland residents from Baltimore, Silver Spring, Frederick, and Hagerstown have formed three teams based on their desire to work on the issues of systemic racism, economic recovery, and education. Project teams will design concrete plans to address each challenge within and/or across urban and rural communities in Maryland.

Spring 2020 Major Grant Awards

Bloc by Block News: Maryland
Bloc by Block News: Maryland
Howard County
Grant Award: $10,000

Bloc by Block News will develop a mobile app that will be a neighborhood news portal for local news and information most relevant at the local level. Bloc by Block will create a series of discussions and events that go beyond the headlines and deepen conversations regarding issues that affect their neighborhoods, cities, states, and society at large. The app will offer curated, credible, community journalism in real time, with news organized based on the user’s interests and location.

Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts
Generations: Music and the Black Family Series
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $10,000

Based on the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s (ASALH) Black History 2021 theme, “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity,” CAAPA has developed a multi-faceted, socially significant and relevant, history-based performance arts series. The series explores the three elements based on the ASALH theme (representation, identity, and diversity) and validates how generations of the black family have historically sustained themselves in challenging and perilous times through music. Events include presentations and panel discussions, poetry readings, musical presentations, and a genealogical research workshop, as well as interactive social media experiences.

From the Heart Productions
Open Secrets documentary
Baltimore County
Grant Award $9,650

Open Secrets is a short documentary about what is revealed when police begin testing evidence from rape examinations that a Baltimore doctor saved in his hospital freezer for decades. It follows one of the first rape care doctors in the country to save DNA and the Baltimore woman who helped find and convict a serial rapist. Police found an astounding number of serial rapists when they began testing Dr. Rudiger Breitenecker’s evidence years after his retirement. Today, most of his evidence remains untested. The documentary follows as Baltimore County police begin to test again thanks to a recent private donation.

Historic Takoma
Stories from Takoma Park’s African American Community
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $10,000

This project will document, preserve, and illuminate the story of Takoma Park’s African American community through short documentary films, a publication, programs, and signage based on oral histories. It will highlight stories of their migration from the South beginning in the 1920s to build a vibrant community in the face of racial discrimination and limited economic resources during the years of official segregation and the decades that followed. Viewers and readers will learn directly from ordinary people about the history, challenges, and resilience of this community.

Imagination Stage
Óyeme Mas Fuerte (Hear Me Louder)
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $8,000

Imagination Stage hosts a series of workshops for immigrant youth designed to help them process their experiences and find connections in their new community. As a part of this initiative, award-winning playwright Mariam Gonzales will craft a script and immersive performance with students that captures their true-life experiences and stories. Óyeme Mas Fuerte will be performed by professional Latino actors at schools and community venues and will include post-performance workshops and discussions, a discussion guide, and training for educators.

MedStar Institute for Quality & Safety
Please See Me: An Online Literary Journal for Healthcare Narratives
Out of State
Grant Award: $7,750

Please See Me (www.pleaseseeme.com) is an online literary journal that features health-related stories told through poetry, short stories, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, interviews, digital drawings/paintings, multi-media presentations, photography, podcasts, and short films. The audience and submissions come from patients, poet laureates, physicians, established authors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, advocates, caregivers, medical students, screenwriters, photographers, and others from the Baltimore-Washington region and around the world. Anyone with a health-related story to tell is encouraged to submit work in their medium of choice.

The United Covenant Union
Crisfield Crab Pickers Oral History Project
Somerset County
Grant Award: $9,592

This oral history project will document the 1938 crab pickers strike in Crisfield and bring to light the rich labor history of the Lower Eastern Shore. It will also examine the connection between labor unions and faith institutions. Community members and descendants of crab pickers union members will be engaged to build a team of lay historians that will collect the histories by conducting both one-on-one interviews and roundtable discussions.

March 2020 Mini Grant Awards

Catoctin Furnace Historical Society
Stories of Slavery, Songs of Freedom: Exploring the Experience of Slavery in Maryland
Frederick County
Grant Award: $1,200

The Catoctin Furnace Historical Society will host the presentation of a historically based dramatic interactive educational program featuring the Washington Revels Jubilee Voices during the 2020 Maryland Iron Festival in Catoctin Furnace, MD. Jubilee Voices’ costumed interpretation of the cultural expression of enslaved Marylanders will include poetry, storytelling, and vocal performance of traditional songs, spirituals, and field hollers, coupled with an interactive talk-back and question and answer session highlighting the history of African Americans in Maryland and their important contribution to the operation of the Catoctin Furnace and to the rise of the industrial US.

Community Mediation Center of Calvert County
Big Conversation on Dismantling Racism & Privilege: Many Wounds to Heal—Health Care Inequity
Calvert County
Grant Award: $1,200

The Big Conversation on Dismantling Racism and Privilege engages the Southern Maryland community to connect people, policy, and history to illuminate structural racism and its impact. Expert panelists will offer data and information on the past and current discrepancies in health care followed by an opportunity for diverse groups of people to both honestly and openly discuss racism. The conversations model encourages constructive civil discourse while building relationships among community members. The program will bring a level of awareness to our community which may not be present among all populations.

Deer Creek Chorale
Celebrating the Gunpowder River in Poetry and Song
Baltimore County
Grant Award: $1,195

A partnership between the Gunpowder RIVERKEEPER (GRK) and Deer Creek Chorale (DCC) will convene programming in multiple formats to include lectures, discussion, and a concert. GRK will present audience education, history, and the ethical uses of the Gunpowder River and Watershed as it relates to community dependency on clean water resources for recreation, environment, and drinking water for Baltimore County and City. The DCC will provide a free community concert, “With One Voice,” featuring musical selections related to Gunpowder River resources and the relationship of music, beauty, art, and nature.

Writing Hearts, Inc.
Guiding Senior Citizens in Writing Stories that Impart Wisdom to Younger Generations
Baltimore City and Baltimore County
Grant Award: $1,188

This project will assist senior citizens in expressing—through the writing of essays—wisdom that they believe to be valuable to share with others. This project will conduct workshops at six to eight senior citizen centers in Baltimore City and County in which 80 individuals will participate. Any person age 60 years of age and older will be able to participate in the sessions regardless of race, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, gender identity, marital status, family status, financial status, educational level, disability, or veteran status. At least three sessions will be held with each center; the option will be available for additional meetings with individuals who may require special assistance. No writing experience is necessary.

Fall 2019 Major Grant Awards

Accokeek Foundation
Land and River Conversations: Exploring Race and Culture through Stories from the Earth
Prince George’s County
Award Amount: $8,000

During the spring of 2020, the Accokeek Foundation will host “Land and River Conversations: Exploring Race and Culture through Stories from the Earth,” programming that will consist of presentations by scholars and experts, followed by Q&A and group discussions. Conversations will acknowledge uncomfortable topics of historic and contemporary trauma and cultural resilience, while grappling with the complexities of race, gender, class, and education that have existed throughout Maryland’s history.

Baltimore School for the Arts Foundation
Between the Shelves
Baltimore City
Award Amount: $5,150

“Between the Shelves” will share stories focused on people who could have crossed paths in the integrated space of the newly opened Central Library Branch of the 1880s. Baltimore School for the Arts students will research period newspapers, diaries, letters, photographs, government documents, and other primary source documents to inspire written monologues. They will then rehearse and perform these monologues in a living history format, with costumes, graphics, props, and set pieces created by stage design and production students.

Banneker-Douglass Museum Foundation
The Black Vote Mural Project
Anne Arundel County
Award Amount: $8,000

The Black Vote Mural exhibition is a public art project that will transform the interior galleries of the Banneker-Douglass Museum into multiple murals that interpret the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s 2020 theme: African Americans and the Vote. In conjunction with the exhibition, Banneker-Douglass Museum will host a series of educational programs and events.

Docs In Progress
Silver Spring Screening Room
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $10,000

Silver Spring Screening Room is a public program series that will engage Maryland audiences in discussions built around the screening of documentary films. It will include monthly curated screenings that will take place at Docs In Progress’ space in downtown Silver Spring and other venues in the city. Silver Spring Screening Room offers a gathering space to showcase documentary film as a form of audio-visual, non-fiction literature that draws on the humanities’ values of biography, history, culture, and ethics.

Lost Towns Project
Anne Arundel’s African American Heritage through Culinary Traditions
Anne Arundel County
Grant Award: $10,000

Lost Towns will host conversation-engaging events centered on culinary traditions and foodways of the African American community. The program format will consist of three evening programs featuring dinner table conversations around a topic or historic theme. Each evening will include several conversation-prompting tasting plates that are relevant to the evening’s topic. Scholars and local historians will serve as hosts and facilitators for each event.

Olney Theatre Corporation
Perspectives on Home in a Multicultural America
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $8,000

Collaborating with public schools and partner organizations, Olney Theatre will conduct storytelling workshops with students and adults to introduce Miss You Like Hell. Based on the musical’s themes of home, family, and immigration, artists will introduce the structure of a story circle through which participants will share and discuss their personal experiences. Following the workshop, participants will attend Miss You Like Hell and a post-performance discussion with artists. Workshop leaders will return to partner sites to continue story circles based on the musical’s themes.

The Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture
Universal Design Today
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $9,498

Universal Design Today will highlight the successes and challenges of persons with disabilities in Maryland and serve as a model for creating more inclusive and accessible physical, digital, and social spaces. The project will result in a participatory exhibit addressing disability, ability, and ableism via installations in three spaces: a website, the Carroll Mansion in Baltimore, and a University of Maryland gallery in College Park. Programming will occur at both physical spaces and will engage in-person and online audiences interested in disability and civil rights, critical inquiry of architecture, and emerging technologies including augmented reality.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln
The Bell Affair: A Documentary Animated Film Reframing American Slavery and Freedom
Out of State (Prince George’s County)
Grant Award: $8,399

The Bell Affair tells the story of Daniel Bell from Prince George’s County, who launched a lawsuit to gain freedom for his enslaved family in the nation’s capital in the late summer of 1835. Daniel Bell privately negotiated for the freedom of his wife and children, but all of his careful plans were upended in the swirl of private and public reaction. Eventually, Daniel Bell organized the largest escape attempt in American history on The Pearl.

Wicomico Public Libraries
Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement
Wicomico County
Grant Award: $2,500

As part of their African American History programming in February 2020, Wicomico Public Libraries will host a program that explores the history of the United States’ civil rights movement through jazz music. The program chronicles the history of jazz music from the turn of the century to present day, highlighting women in jazz and their influence on the evolution of jazz as an art form.

November 2019 Mini Grant Awards

Blair Network Communications
SilverLens
Montgomery County
Grant Award: $1,200

Blair Network Communications (BNC) is a student-run media production organization at Montgomery Blair High School. SilverLens, BNC’s documentary team, creates short films that often focus on social justice and other issues of importance to members’ local communities. The students independently develop a topic, research, and reach out to local organizations and experts for interviews. Their films air on Montgomery County TV and reach people off all ages across the county.

Historic Hampton
Ethnographic Study Lecture Series
Baltimore County
Grant Award: $1,200

Hampton National Historic Site (HNHS) has recently completed an Ethnographic Overview and Assessment. An 11-member team has conducted groundbreaking research leading to enhanced knowledge of the lives and families of the enslaved. The new historic information will be incorporated into enhanced interpretation and programming at HNHS, where staff and docents are being trained to include the new information and the art of interpreting this difficult subject. In addition to the newly enhanced interpretive tours, there will be lectures by members of the Ethnographic Team to publicly share research findings.

Patapsco Heritage Greenway
Patapsco Days 2020
Howard County
Grant Award $1,200

During the month of May, Patapsco Heritage Greenway will partner with local institutions within the Patapsco Valley Heritage Area to host a series of events, lectures, and exhibits celebrating the history and culture of the Patapsco Valley centered around a single theme. This year, Patapsco Days will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment by focusing on women’s history.

Salisbury Middle School
Salisbury Poetry Week
Wicomico County
Grant Award: $999

In celebration of National Poetry Month, a Poet-in-Residence will travel to Salisbury to lecture and teach a series of writing workshops for the 4th-annual Salisbury Poetry Week. Programming will be held March 30–April 5, 2020 and will highlight the significance and relevance of poetry as a voice for all residents of Salisbury and the Eastern Shore, including youth, senior citizens, and the general population.

July 2019 Mini Grant Awards

Annapolis Maritime Museum
2019 Oral History Project
Anne Arundel County
Grant Award: $1,200

The AMM is receiving funding to support the digitization of special collection oral history interviews. In 2018, the Museum began an oral history project to gather new interviews from Eastport and Annapolis locals, focusing on the maritime heritage of Annapolis and the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay. This initiative is intended to substantially add to their existing collection of oral histories. The Museum will make these resources publicly available for families and researchers.

Charles H. Flowers High School
“What We See”: African American Art Though the Eyes of High School Students with Special Needs
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $600

This is an art project to give students with cognitive disabilities the unique opportunity to interpret how they see African American art through various mediums.  The students will choose an art piece from local African American artists and create their own interpretation of what they see with assistance from staff and art teachers.  The project will allow this population of people to show their works in a public exhibit and to discuss their interpretation of selected art pieces from local African American artists in Maryland.

Hearing and Speech Agency of Metropolitan Baltimore (HASA)
Brilliant Baltimore Access Partnership
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $1,200

To foster a culture of inclusivity, HASA has partnered with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOPA) as its Access & Inclusion Partner for Brilliant Baltimore, the newly combined Baltimore Book Festival/Light City. HASA will provide expertise, programming, and accommodations for Light & Literature Unite (November 1–10, 2019). In this role, HASA will provide several services designed to make both festivals more welcoming to attendees with disabilities and differences. The grant primarily supports the provision of ASL interpreters at the literature portion of the program.

Strong City Baltimore
The Legend of Tommy Tremain: Exploring Myths & Monuments
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $960

The project consists of a reading of the play, The Legend of Tommy Tremain. The reading will be accompanied by a presentation and facilitated conversation about history, monuments, and memorials. The play explores the story surrounding a fictional statue placed in the town square and the issues raised by the monument. It was inspired by public conversations around the removal of monuments in Baltimore and discussion about what to do with the vacant spaces.

United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore
75^th-Anniversary Traveling Exhibit
Wicomico County
Grant Award: $1,200

The project is the creation of an interpretive exhibit exploring the 75-year history of the United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore (UWLES) and the ways the organization’s history reflects the broader history of the lower shore community.  The traveling exhibit will include panels with interpretive text and images, along with historical objects.  The intended audience is the general lower shore communities served by UWLES, which include Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties.

Washington County Museum of Fine Arts
“What Is the Black Aesthetic?”
Washington County
Grant Award: $1,200

On December 1, 2019, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts will host a panel discussion to examine the question of what constitutes uniquely black aesthetic in relation to African American cultural heritage, history, philosophy, literature, and the arts. Drawing upon periods, movements, and themes explored through the works of art on view in the special exhibit “The Blues and the Abstract Truth: Voices of African American Art,” panelists will discuss a range of political, social, and cultural issues in relation to the overarching notion of the black aesthetic.

 

Major Grants Awards – Spring 2019

Baltimore Museum of Industry
Remembering Bethlehem Steel Program Series
Baltimore City
Grant Award:  $3,000

The Baltimore Museum of Industry will host Shuttered: Images from the Fall of Bethlehem Steel, a photo exhibition that examines the disappearance of industrial life and the neighborhoods surrounding Sparrows Point. A series of public programs on the history and legacy of steelmaking will examine the social impact of economic change and deindustrialization on the communities surrounding the now-closed mill.

Bay Journal Media
San Domingo
Out of State (Wicomico County)
Grant Award: $10,000

In early 2020, Bay Journal Media will premiere the film San Domingo, which tells the story of a vanishing African American community in Wicomico County. Founded in 1820 by free blacks from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, at its peak the town was home to a thriving community and included an extant Rosenwald school. The film captures the little-known history of the 200-year-old town.

CHARM/Writers In Schools
CHARM Voices of Baltimore Youth
Baltimore City
Grant Award:  $10,000

CHARM will pilot two initiatives in Baltimore City Public Schools: Class Book Project and CHARM Clubs.  The Class Book Project will support a teacher and class of students in creating a book over the course of a semester that connects to class skills and content. Students are part of the book’s creation from conception to publication and receive a free copy of their book. CHARM after-school clubs will meet twice a month and focus on developing discrete literacy skills—such as imagery or setting—using mentor texts as inspiration.

Evergreen Heritage Center Foundation
Living off the Land: A Western Maryland Experience
Allegany County
Grant Award:  $8,000

The project includes establishing a museum in the lower level of the Evergreen Heritage Center’s barn.  Together with the Evergreen House Museum, this will provide insight into the history, folklore, and traditions of life on a Western Maryland farm. There will also be a visitors’ guide that will include interpretive walking tours of the property and museums. In addition, an exhibit catalog detailing artifacts—including origin, use, historical details, and family stories—will be developed. These resources, along with historical documents and artifacts, will be used in an interpretive exhibit to explore the significance of agriculture to Western Maryland.

Hippodrome Foundation, Inc.
Behind the Mask: A Student Analysis of Works of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Edgar Allan Poe
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $4,000

The Hippodrome Theatre will host 8^th-grade Baltimore City Public Schools students to work together to analyze how The Phantom of the Opera draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from Edgar Allan Poe.  Students will attend a performance of The Phantom of the Opera, read The Masque of the Red Death, and—after study and discussion—write an analysis essay comparing Lloyd Webber’s and Poe’s works. Completed student projects will be showcased at the Hippodrome Theatre in January 2020.

Historic Sotterley, Inc.
Building Bridges to Common Ground
St. Mary’s County
Grant Award: $10,000

This year-long initiative will include a remembrance event on August 23, 2019 associated with Sotterley’s designation as a UNESCO Slave Route Site of Memory. The day is also the World Day of Remembrance for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Its Abolition.  Then on September 5–7, 2019, Sotterley will hold a three-day program that includes speakers, panelists, archeologists, historians, and Sotterley descendants bringing the stories and experiences of their collective research and memory of ancestors—both enslaved and free—to modern relevance.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland Foundation
From Invisibility to Remembrance:  Commemorating Slavery in St. Mary’s City & Southern MD
St. Mary’s County
Grant Award:  $10,000

St. Mary’s College will install an on-campus commemorative memorial to enslaved peoples of Southern Maryland. The public symposium, “From Invisibility to Remembrance: Commemorating Slavery in St. Mary’s City and Southern Maryland,” will coincide with or serve as a prologue to the unveiling of the commemorative project and site. St. Mary’s faculty, students, and visiting scholars will provide the general public with updates about the Seminary discovery, narratives about those enslaved people, and slavery in Maryland.

Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University
Community Story Quilts: A Joan Gaither Exhibit and Workshop Series
Wicomico County
Grant Award: $9,100

 The Ward Museum will host a major exhibit, as well as a series of workshops and activities, engaging the public in community history. Community Story Quilts will feature biographical and community quilts made or led by Dr. Joan Gaither, a documentary quilter and 2017 Maryland Heritage Award winner.  Eastern Shore cultural communities will be able to participate in the telling of their own stories and to have their work—guided by Dr. Gaither through quilting workshops—shown as part of the exhibit in an Eastern Shore community quilt.

Writers In Baltimore Schools
Neighborhoods, News: A Poetic Archiving of Baltimore
Baltimore City
Grant Award $10,000

From October 2019 through June 2020, Writers in Baltimore Schools will partner with The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City high schools, Maryland Institute College of Art, and city neighborhoods on “Neighborhoods, News: A Poetic Archiving of Baltimore,” an archival-based poetry project.  Students will serve as poets and then as facilitators of neighborhood programs to produce poems about the communities they choose to research in the archives. The poems will be illustrated by Maryland Institute College of Art’s Masters in Fine Arts students.

March 2019 Mini Grant Awards

Friends of Cunningham Falls State Park
Maryland Iron Festival Kick-Off
Frederick County
Grant Award:  $400

On May 17, 2019, the Friends of Cunningham Falls State Park will host the Maryland Iron Festival Kick-Off—the opening ceremony for a weekend of living history interpretation focusing on Catoctin Furnace, an historic iron-making village located just south of Thurmont.

Friends of the St. Clements Island and Piney Point Museums
Heritage Day
St. Mary’s County
Grant Award:  $1,200

On June 1, 2019, St. Clement’s Island Museums Heritage Day will provide the opportunity for the public to visit the island—the site of the first landing of English settlers in Maryland in 1634—and learn about its history, culture, heritage, and ecology.

Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area
Dorchester County Audio Tours
Dorchester County
Grant Award:  $1,200

To celebrate Dorchester County’s 350^th anniversary, the Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area will create a series of audio guides that will be accessed via mobile devices to supplement and enhance existing self-guided walking and driving tours.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre
Pride and Prejudice and the Construction of Gender
Frederick County
Grant Award:  $1,200

In May and June 2019, the Maryland Ensemble Theatre will produce four performances inviting three local public high schools to participate in pre-show lectures and post-show discussions focusing on gender construction in Pride and Prejudice.

The Writer’s Center
#OwnVoices: Autism Through a Literary Lens
Montgomery County
Grant Award:  $1,200

On June 1, 2019, The Writer’s Center will convene a mini-conference addressing how autistic characters are portrayed in writing and how the language used to write about autism impacts public discourse. There will be writing workshops for autistic individuals and parents of autistic children. Autistic writers will be included in planning, teaching, and a panel discussion.

Fall 2018 Major Grant Awards

Community College of Baltimore County Foundation
Invisible History: Exploring the CCBC Hilton Center’s Past
Baltimore County
Grant Award:  $3,000

The Hilton Center, located on the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) Catonsville campus, was built between 1828 and 1835. CCBC’s Global Education and Catonsville Honors Programs will work in collaboration with the Catonsville Historical Society and local scholars to implement a humanities-based lecture series and cultural tours to local historical sites, with the event series culminating in a May 1, 2019 forum featuring academic and public historians and historical design experts from Maryland.

Coppin State University Development Foundation
Laurel Cemetery Project Symposium
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $5,144

The Laurel Cemetery Project Symposium, to be held June 15, 2019, will bring together community residents, descendants, amateur historians, scholars, preservation professionals, students, and other interested parties in a public presentation and discussion of project findings. The symposium will include presentations on archaeological and ethnohistorical work relative to the site, a panel on the protection of African American burial sites, and a facilitated community discussion to collaboratively outline a strategy for respectfully memorializing the site.

Educate One Project (Strong City Baltimore)
Winter 2019 Baltimore City Public School Book Tour
Baltimore City
Grant Award:  $10,000

During the week of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, authors Kevin Shird and civil rights activist and King confidant Nelson Malden will visit five Baltimore City High Schools to distribute and discuss their book, The Colored Waiting Room. Following a lecture and Q&A at each school, students will have the opportunity to speak to the authors and receive a signed copy of the book.

Garrett Lakes Arts Festival
Chautauqua Then and Now
Garrett County
Grant Award: $8,500

Between July 5 – 7, 2019, the Garrett Lakes Arts Festival will hold a 25th Anniversary Chautauqua Celebration to highlight the rich history of the movement in Western Maryland. Programming will include historical accounts of well-known Americans who visited the area. Local historians and living history presentations will offer information on famous Americans during the time of the original Chautauqua series (1882–1935).

Katipunan Filipino American Association of Maryland
Locating Filipino Americans in Maryland: Our Immigrant Journeys
Baltimore County
Grant Award: $10,000

The project “Our Immigrant Journeys” will be based on an analysis of two literary texts: America is in the Heart (1946) by Carlos Bulosan and America is Not the Heart (2018) by Elaine Castillo.  Filipino immigrants from various generations—who have lived in Maryland for at least 10 years—will be interviewed, a short video produced to highlight their stories, and a storytelling forum will be held.  At the annual Filipino Fiesta event held in June, a photography and art exhibit will be displayed depicting the multi-faceted stories of Filipino immigration in the state. Events will occur between February and December 2019.

Producer’s Club of Maryland (Maryland Film Festival)
Baltimore Student Film Showcase
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $10,000

The Maryland Film Festival will host a series of showcases of student-produced film and video work through the Baltimore Student Film Showcase at the SNF Parkway Theatre. This program gives Baltimore-area students, middle school through college, the opportunity to present their work, forge connections with educators and future collaborators, and build upon the region’s growing film community. A workshop component to explore a range of filmmaking techniques will also be offered.

Stone Soup Productions
Celebration of Excellence
Baltimore City
Grant Award:  $8,000

In May 2019, two Celebrations of Excellence events will be held at the Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy, a high school in Baltimore focused on preparing students for college and careers in science and medicine.  Programming will include the screening of an excerpt from the PBS documentary Partners of the Heart, the story of Vivien T. Thomas, followed by roundtable discussions with the filmmakers, scholars, physicians, and members of the Thomas Family. Stone Soup Productions will also organize an outdoor screening of the documentary for the student body, their families, and the local community.  Selected students will attend a field trip to Johns Hopkins Hospital to learn more about Dr. Thomas’ history and accomplishments.

Towson University
What Were You Wearing? Weaving a New Narrative
Baltimore County
Grant Award: $10,000

This exhibition aims to dismantle the toxic ideology behind the question asked of many sexual assault survivors: “Were you attacked because of how you were dressed?” Consisting of historic and first-hand survivor accounts and recreations of clothing worn at the time of the assaults, What Were You Wearing? illuminates the severe problem of sexual assault on campus. Displays will be presented in multiple locations across campus in April 2019 and include community-wide events, including book discussions and staged readings of relevant plays, to encourage discussion about sexual assault in Maryland.

University of Maryland Baltimore County
Honest Conversations: Faith Community Dialogues on Immigration and Race
Baltimore County
Grant Award: $3,291

Between February and June 2019, UMBC and the Latino Racial Justice Circle (LRJC) will hold two public dialogues on matters of religion, race, and immigration in two Catholic parishes in Baltimore. Each of the dialogues will happen in three sessions. In these conversations, members of the LRJC, congregants of host parishes, and community members will share personal stories, feelings, and thoughts about religion, race, and immigration; discuss commonalities and differences between immigrants and native-born people; develop visions for how participants can cope with immigration and racism; and deliberate on actions that participants can take to realize those visions.

Wide Angle Youth Media
Why Black Lives Matter: Discussing Race Through Film, Photography, and Design
Baltimore City
Grant Award: $9,515

Wide Angle Youth Media staff have developed a curriculum, “Why Black Lives Matter: Discussing Race Through Film, Photography, and Design,” that pairs youth media projects with instructional content. In Spring 2019, Wide Angle will share this content with a variety of audiences through film screenings and free educator trainings. Printed curriculum will be distributed through two free educator trainings that will provide framing and information for utilizing it in classrooms. Curriculum will also be distributed at community screenings, conference presentations, and through Wide Angle’s organizational network.

 

November 2018 Mini Grant Awards

Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts
Movin’ On Up: The Great Migration
Prince George’s County
Grant Award: $1,200

Based on the Association for the Study African American Life and History’s 2019 theme “Black Migrations and Urban Realities”, CAAPA will present two events: a panel discussion entitled “The Impact of Music during the Great Migration” to be held on February 2, 2019 and “Goin’ North: Spoken Word Presentation,” an April 6, 2019 program with poets, authors, and performers exploring interpretive history and sharing the struggles of Blacks during the Great Migration through literary readings, spoken word, and music.

The Historical Society of Baltimore County
Water-Themed Local History Exhibits for Museum on Main Street’s Water/Ways
Baltimore County
Grant Award: $1,105

The Historical Society of Baltimore County will be the first of six statewide sites to host Water/Ways, a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibition, brought to the state by the Maryland Humanities’ Museum on Main Street program. Located in Cockeysville, the Water/Ways exhibition will be open to the public from May 25 to July 6, 2019.

Pocomoke High School
Writing Center Visiting Writers Series
Worcester County
Grant Award: $1,200

Between February and April 2019, Pocomoke High School’s Writing Center will present a series of reading and writing experiences for Worcester County youth. The Writing Center team has commitments from established poets from neighboring universities and writing programs to participate as teachers and facilitators. The program will enhance the current curriculum adopted by the county by bringing in these writers to teach specialized workshops in tone, diction, and expression to students and their teachers.

Salisbury Middle School
Salisbury Poetry Week
Wicomico County
Grant Award: $999

In celebration of National Poetry Month, poet and author Jane Satterfield, Associate Professor of Loyola University and 2019 Salisbury Poet-in-Residence, will lecture and teach a series of writing workshops for the 3rd annual Salisbury Poetry Week.  Programming to be held April 2–11, 2019 will highlight the significance and relevance of poetry as a voice for all the residents of Salisbury and the Eastern Shore, including youth, senior citizens, and the general population.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Journey of Freedom in America: African Americans in WWI
Washington County
Grant Award: $1,200

On February 16, 2019, Voices from the Earth will present a Chautauqua program that includes living history character interpretation and audience interaction with historical characters. The emphasis is on the role of African Americans in World War I, as 2018 is the centennial of the WWI Armistice. St. Mark’s is part of the Trail of Souls, supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland to help churches explore, interpret, and express their African American Heritage.

July 2018 Mini-Grant Awards

Cecil County Public Library
Freedom: A History of US
Cecil County
Award Amount: $900

The Cecil County Public Library will host Freedom: A History of US at the Elkton Central Library during the months of October and November 2018. The exhibit, curated by The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, documents critical figures and events while tracing the evolving concept of freedom from the nation’s founding through 1968. Among the highlights are: a rare 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence, a printed draft and the official copy of the US Constitution, Lincoln’s handwritten notes for speeches, and letters by  Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King Jr. A series of companion programs will run throughout the length of the exhibit.

Dundalk-Patapsco Neck Historical Society, Inc.
Historical and Musicological Background for the Writing of our National Anthem
Baltimore County
Grant Request: $600

The program will be presented twice on September 2^nd as part of the Annual Defenders Day Commemoration and Battle of North Point re-enactment event at Fort Howard. Dr. David Hildebrand will present a lecture with instrumental and vocal demonstrations of broadsides and specifically Francis Scott Key’s composition that became the National Anthem.

Spring 2018 Major Grant Awards

Accokeek Foundation
Land and River Conversations: Exploring Race and Culture through Stories from the Earth
Prince George’s County
Award Amount: $6,000

Between October 2018 and January 2019, the Accokeek Foundation will host “Land and River Conversations: Exploring Race and Culture through Stories from the Earth,” programming that will consist of a three-part series of presentations by scholars and experts, each of which will be followed by Q&A and group discussions. The Conversations will serve as public scoping workshops to engage interdisciplinary experts and advisers in dialogue with the public about complex topics such as: the interconnectedness of African American and Native American cultures; the ways that various groups have interacted with the land and river over time; and the history of landscape conservation in Piscataway Park and throughout the United States.

DewMore Baltimore
DewMore Baltimore Youth Poetry Festival
Baltimore City
Award Amount: $6,000

For five years, DewMore has successfully implemented the DewMore Poetry League Social Justice Poetry/Hip Hop Clubs in 27 Baltimore City public schools, group homes, libraries, and prisons, impacting over 700 youth between the ages of 14–21. The programs amplify youth voices while developing safe spaces, building writing skills, and teaching youth how to advocate about issues that impact them. Every April, the programs culminate in a three-day poetry festival where middle and high school students gather to celebrate their unique identities and their collective voice. This is Maryland’s largest spoken word festival; the event gives students the opportunity to meet like-minded youth and to attend writing and performance workshops led by some of the region’s most recognized artists and community organizers.

Docs In Progress
Community Stories
Montgomery County
Award Amount:  $10,000

Community Stories, an annual week-long festival to be held November 8–14, will connect both emerging and experienced documentary storytellers with audiences interested in discovering more about the people, places, and history of the Montgomery County region. The Community Stories Festival will incorporate time for dialogue and discussion into all screenings. Filmmakers, scholars, and the people profiled in the films will engage in discussion with and answer questions from the audience about documentary filmmaking and the films’ subject matter.

Hyattsville Community Development Corporation
Mapping Racism
Prince George’s County
Award Amount: $10,000

In the 1920s and 1930s, land and property use restrictions that were known as restrictive deed covenants became commonplace in the sale of real estate as a means to further reinforce racial segregation. “Mapping Racism” will provide comprehensive identification, mapping, and archiving of race-based restrictive covenants in the Hyattsville community. Data gathered will be shared publically through an online searchable property database, interactive mapping, and community presentations. Workshops will discuss the history of racially restrictive covenants in Hyattsville and their impact on the growth and development of Hyattsville and neighboring communities in Prince George’s County.

La Grande Vision Foundation for Public and Fine Art
Bringing Billie Back
Baltimore City
Award Amount: $4,000

Le Grande Vision Foundation for Public and Fine Art will host a combination of lectures and musical performances at the West Baltimore site of the Billie Holiday Monument. James Earl Reid will provide attendees with a lecture on his sculpture, the life of Billie Holiday, and the history of the neighborhood that houses the statue. The lyrics from Billie Holiday songs will be used to examine the historical context in which they were created.

Muse 360 Arts
New Generation Scholars:  Youth Leadership Program
Baltimore City
Award Amount:  $10,000

New Generation Scholars will provide 30 Baltimore City youth (ages 13–18) with an opportunity to participate in a six-month program that meets bi-weekly to learn about Black American history in Baltimore and the global black experience. Scholars will attend college-style lectures and presentations, engage in dialogue with adult scholars, and participate in guided peer group discussions. They will create collaborative media and arts projects that grow from their intensive study based on their research from various collections, exhibitions, and educational resources.

Strong City Baltimore
The Maryland Odyssey Pilot Project & Symposium
Baltimore City
Award Amount:  $3,600

The Maryland Odyssey Pilot Project & Symposium brings an accessible new translation of Homer’s Odyssey into four high school classrooms and after-school programs in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Anne Arundel County. Working with their teachers, students in grades 9–11 will write poetry and speeches; compose original works of dramatic, dance, and visual arts; and learn about period history and society, all in response to this new text. Aspects of these projects will culminate in public performances for approximately 500 students, parents, and invited guests between October and December 2018.

Wor-Wic Community College
Echoes from the Margins: A Year of Amplifying Silenced Voices
Wicomico County
Award Amount:  $10,000

In celebration of the 30^th year of their national award-winning student literary magazine, Echoes & Visions, Wor-Wic Community College will invite national, regional, and local writers to their campus for a reading and workshop series beginning in August 2018.  Writers will be drawn from specific groups to read for and interact with members of the local community. There will also be a series of interactive events in which participants will continue to discuss issues related to the writers’ work, deepening their understanding of the artist, the issues, and the art form.  These events will allow for creative expression which will inspire and augment a unique 30^th Anniversary publication of Echoes & Visions.

March 2018 Mini-Grant Awards

City Lit Project
15th Annual CityLit Festival
Baltimore City
Award Amount: $600

The 15th Annual CityLit Festival is a day-long event highlighting literature and language, held this year in April. Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker staff writer and author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories of Rwanda, served as the event’s keynote speaker.

Montgomery Community Television
NEA Big Read Montgomery
Montgomery County
Award Amount: $1,200

Montgomery County Television, with the support of an NEA Big Read grant, will partner with Montgomery County Public Libraries, Friends of the Library Montgomery County and Montgomery History to create a county-wide reading experience featuring “The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears”, by MacArthur Fellow Dinaw Mengestu.  Programming will include a June 9, 2019 lecture and discussion with the author and the recording of oral histories of immigrant residents of Montgomery County.

Mountainside Baroque, Inc.
Historical Lectures for “Music in the Mountains” Festival
Allegany County
Award Amount: $1,200

“Music in the Mountains” is a biennial summer festival that will be held June 14 – 17, 2018 at the Allegany Museum in Cumberland. Educational components of the festival include lectures and a panel discussion that will explore the origins and history of Appalachian musical heritage.

Fall 2017 Major Grant Awards

Center Stage Associates
Baltimore Center Stage Mobile Unit
Baltimore City
Award Amount: $8,900

The Center Stage Mobile Unit will feature a professional, high-quality, touring production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that will travel in spring 2018 to prisons, juvenile detention facilities, homeless shelters, and assisted living facilities free of charge for the partner organizations and their populations. Before each performance, audience members will have access to a dramaturgy packet, which offers background information, context, historical settings and other relevant details to provide a better understanding of the play. Each stop consists of a performance of the play, along with the opportunity for pre- and post-show dialogue with the artists, staff, and audience members about the themes and issues relevant to their lives.

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Black Theatre Symposium
Prince George’s County
Award Amount: $2,500

On April 14, 2018, the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center will host the third Black Theatre Symposium to include panel discussions, workshops, and performances. Theatre professionals, scholars, and students will convene to discuss and take action around the topics of inclusion and diversity in American theatre, dance, and performance and engage in a spirited dialogue about the past, present, and future of Black theatre.

Historic  Sotterley, Inc.
Common Ground, Connected Heritage
St. Mary’s County
Award Amount: $10,000

Following the April public commemoration ceremony to dedicate the 1830’s Slave Cabin to descendants in 2017, Sotterley initiated a Descendants Project to gather information on the lives of those who lived and worked at Sotterley:  black, white, free, or enslaved. In spring of 2018, Sotterley will host a two-day event connecting both existing documented stories and emerging stories with audiences interested in discovering more about the history of Southern Maryland. Programming includes film screenings, interactive educational programs, panel-led discussions, and filming of adults and youth participating in oral history workshops. In the fall of 2018, Sotterley will host Joe McGill of The Slave Dwelling Project for the kickoff of their Speaker Series.

James Agee Film Project
At The Common Table: People, Place and Food in the American South
Prince George’s County
Award Amount: $5,720

At The Common Table: People, Place, and Food in the American South, a feature-length documentary on the multiethnic roots of Southern food that traces the story of southern foods across the miles and centuries, from the fields of Africa and Europe to the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, and explores the dramatic connections of food, identity, and history in Maryland and the American South. The film will explore the rich agricultural and culinary traditions of Native and African Americans in Maryland.

Live Garra Theatre, Inc.
America’s Talking: A Community Mosaic
Montgomery County
Award Amount: $8,500

Live Garra Theatre will host programming where participants will talk about their experiences and aspirations through poetry and storytelling, bringing residents of diverse ethnic backgrounds together to share personal stories. The interactive discussions are scheduled to run over a two-week period in June 2018, incorporating a montage of cultures representing many ethnic communities, such as Ethiopian/Eritrea, Central & West Africa, Middle Eastern, Caribbean, Asian and South American immigrants. A series of workshops will be conducted to develop the context of each story. Live Garra Theatre will partner with the Gandhi Brigade Youth Media organization to film the project; the workshop series, interviews of the participants’ backstory, i.e., family-life, social activities, etc.

Queen Anne’s County Arts Council
Dr. Michael Eric Dyson Lecture: “Race, Racism & Race Relations in America”
Queen Anne’s County
Award Amount: $10,000

On September 12, 2018, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson will present a free lecture at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center in Queen Anne’s County. Dr. Dyson, a Georgetown University sociology professor, is an American Book Award recipient who has authored or edited eighteen books. He is a two-time NAACP Image Award winner and is one of the nation’s most influential and renowned public intellectuals. Dr. Dyson’s pioneering scholarship has had a profound effect on discussions of racism, racial injustice, and African American history. The program is anticipated to draw audience members from the five-county region of Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Caroline, Kent and Dorchester counties.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County
50^th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine: Commemorating History and Inspiring Action for Peace
Baltimore County
Award Amount: $5,000

This project will include a series of events to be held in the spring of 2018 to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the burning of draft files by nine Catholic activists to protest the Vietnam War.  Programming includes a symposium, exhibit, historic marker unveiling, and film screenings and discussions.

Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University
The Delmarvalous Festival
Wicomico County
Award Amount: $9,380

This project will showcase the heritage of the Eastern Shore of Maryland through the Delmarvalous Festival in June 2018. This day-long program is focused on presenting and interpreting the traditional foodways, crafts, work, and other practices of the people of the Delmarva Peninsula. Tradition bearers and scholars will engage in formal narrative stage presentations and public demonstrations for festival attendees. These same participants will also be engaged, where appropriate, to conduct the demonstrations so that audiences can get up close with the traditions about which they are learning. Topics to be highlighted include basketry, boat building, baking, crabbing, decoy carving, and Native American traditions.

November 2017 Mini-Grant Awards

Artpartheid
Re-Imagining Monuments
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Artpartheid will coordinate a series of programs to discuss the history of monuments and diverse approaches to monument making and monuments of other cultures. There will be a session at the New Arts Foundry, a bronze casting foundry involved in monument making, and a workshop where participants discuss their ideas for monuments and make scale model monuments.

Catoctin Furnace Historical Society
Leading to Freedom:  Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in Maryland
Frederick County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Leading to Freedom will be the cornerstone of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society’s annual 2018 Spring in the Village festival event.  The project will feature a living history portrayal of Harriet Tubman, followed by an author presentation and book signing by Dr. Carol Boston Weatherford who will read from and discuss her work Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom.

Crisfield Heritage Foundation
Watermen’s Pavilion Exhibit
Somerset County
Awarded Amount: $1,000

The grant will support costs associated with an interpretive exhibit that explores tools, history, and culture of watermen on the Chesapeake Bay and Tangier Sound. It will serve as a companion exhibit to the working crab shanty exhibit. The exhibit space has a view of Somers Cove Marina on the Tangier Sound so visitors are able to observe working boats during their visit.

University of Baltimore
Commemorating the Poor People’s Campaign’s 50^th Anniversary through Exhibit, Lecture, and Reflection
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $998

This project will include an exhibit of students’ archival research capturing themes of the Poor People’s Campaign, a lecture on the subject, and discussion with participants of the Poor People’s Campaign Center for Emerging Media’s Marc Steiner and University of Baltimore’s Dr. Lenneal Henderson.

July 2017 Mini Grant Awards

Loyola University Maryland
Multilingual Baltimore
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,000

Building on an oral history project conducted by undergraduate students of foreign languages, this project will culminate with the screening of a compilation video with English subtitles of Baltimore immigrant interviews in Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish.  The screening will be followed by a public discussion about language and multilingualism.

Pigtown Main Street, Inc.
Pigtown Festival
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $800

This project will bring the B&O Railroad Museum’s traveling exhibit to the 16^th Annual Pigtown Festival to be held on Saturday, October 14^th. The exhibit will educate local families and visitors on the B&O’s historical significance and its role in the founding of the neighborhood.

 

Spring 2017 Major Grant Awards

CHARM/Writers In Schools
CHARM & Writers In Schools Baltimore
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

CHARM is Baltimore’s only student literary and arts magazine. It enables students in grades 2-12 from all over the city to read about each other’s experiences and consider different perspectives, conjuring empathy and connections along the way. Writers In Schools provides students with a copy of a local author’s book so that they can study it closely with their teachers and then welcome the authors into their classrooms for genuine conversations about writing. The program’s impact is twofold: students read more—and more deeply—from high-quality literature, and they meet accessible, local writing role models who inspire them to tell their own stories. CHARM and Writers in Schools Baltimore will utilize a three-pronged project format of lecture (author visits to schools), conference (interactive workshops and community launch parties), and media project (published CHARM journal(s)).

Docs in Progress
Community Stories Festival
Montgomery County
Awarded Amount: $10,000

Community Stories is an annual festival that connects both emerging and experienced documentary storytellers with audiences interested in discovering more about the people, places, and history of the Montgomery County region. Programming includes multiple days and nights of film screenings, talks, and interactive educational programs. Festival events include screening and discussion of short documentaries produced by adults and youth who have participated in documentary production workshops at Docs In Progress over the past year.

Fenix Youth Project Inc.
BARS: Stories of the System, A Youth Perspective
Wicomico County
Awarded Amount: $10,000

BARS: Stories of the System, A Youth Perspective is a collaboration between Fenix Youth Project and StoryCenter, a nonprofit organization working nationally and internationally to create spaces for transforming lives and communities through storytelling. The BARS Project provides a unique way for minority youth impacted by the juvenile justice system to participate in public life, using media (digital storytelling) to elevate, disseminate, and discuss their lived experiences. They will broaden the role of minority youth in our communities by centering their digital stories in a public humanities-informed dialogue on juvenile justice occurring in multiple formats – a youth-led “Town Hall Remix” public screening and forum, on radio, in news articles, and online through blog posts, websites, and social media.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland
From Slavery to Freedom in St. Mary’s City: Engaging History to Strengthen Democracy with Jazz
St. Mary’s County
Awarded Amount: $5,000

In 2016, St. Mary’s College uncovered archaeological evidence that St. Mary’s Female Seminary owned slaves in the 19th century. “From Slavery to Freedom” engages community members in historical, cultural, and philosophical reflection on the meaning of slavery in St. Mary’s City and beyond; how African Americans liberated themselves from oppression by “improvising” through jazz; and how through engaging this history, we can liberate ourselves for inclusive democracy. Programming will include a public symposium and lectures, demonstrations, and workshops.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland Foundation
St. Mary’s County Oral History Project
St. Mary’s County
Awarded Amount: $5,000

The St. Mary’s County Oral History Project will be the first oral history project that focuses on recent foreign-born immigrants in St. Mary’s County. By focusing on the experiences of these individuals, the project brings to light a “hidden” history of rural immigration and offers an innovative approach to the tradition of local oral history collection. The project consists of the following public events and activities that are free of charge to members of the community: (1) a college course on oral history; (2) four workshops where students and community members engage in drafting interview questions and discussing relevant methodologies and strategies; (3) three public forums; and (4) a photo exhibition and contest.

Walters Art Museum
One West Mount Vernon Place at the Walters Art Museum
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $4,750

The Walters Art Museum will tell the intersecting stories of the people who designed, built, occupied, and worked at One West Mount Vernon Place (1WMVP), and link the lived history of the house to the larger regional and national narratives that unfolded in 19th century Baltimore. A new digital platform will serve a vital role in connecting visitors with the 1WMVP offerings and enable the interpretation of the house, its history, and the objects on display, to move away from the third-person, anonymous voice to a multi-perspective approach representing manifold human experiences. The interpretive content for these topics and themes will include text and images and may include sound and video. Visitors will also be able to participate in various educational programs such as gallery talks, family festivals, workshops, and artist performances.

Washington County Museum of Fine Art
Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts, 13th – 18th Centuries
Washington County
Awarded Amount: $8,250

The exhibition includes 38 framed folios from European, Persian, Armenian, and Hebrew manuscripts. Painted Pages explores the golden age of handmade books, some of which employed gold leaf decoration and intricate ornament. The exhibition includes examples from medieval European Bibles, psalters, books of hours, choir books, missals, breviaries, and lectionaries. French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, English, Armenian, and German examples will be included in addition to non-Western pages, including 17th and 18th-century leaves from Hebrew texts, the Koran and the Shahnameh, the Persian illustrated Book of Kings. The Washington County Museum of Fine Art will provide a variety of interpretive programs and classes associated with the exhibition.

March 2017 Mini-Grant Awards

CityLit Project
14th Annual CityLit Festival featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The 14th Annual CityLit Festival partners with the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Communications to feature novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. CityLit’s signature event on April 29, 2017 takes place in the center of a day-long free festival celebrating poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The featured event includes a discussion centered on the release of Adichie’s new book, Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.

Sugarland Ethno-History Project
Guardians of Our Past
Montgomery County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The project will combine a community film screening and discussion centered around the locally produced documentary “Guardians of Our Past,” a documentary about the Sugarland Forest community established by freed slaves in the late 1800s. The film and its characters look at the topic of familial and regional history in Sugarland, MD through a multi-generational lens and work to answer the question: why is familial history important? The film also assesses why the preservation of oral histories and the conservation of physical places and items is essential for preserving the past, as well as equipping the next generations with a solid foundation to look towards the future.

November 2017 Mini-Grant Award

G.A.R. Post #25 “Sumner Hall”
Celebrating “The Way We Work” in Kent County Maryland
Kent County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The G.A.R. Post #25 (Sumner Hall) will present public programming that explores critical issues related to work – both historically and in contemporary society – while hosting the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibition The Way We Worked. An examination of the changing nature of work in a rural economy, the American work ethic, discrimination in the workforce, employment and unemployment will be conducted through the exhibit, collection, and sharing of oral histories, a historical walking tour, lecture, and book discussion. This project is in conjunction with Maryland Humanities’ Museum on Main Street program.

Fall 2017 Major Grant Awards

Center Stage Associates
Center Stage Mobile Unit
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The CS Mobile Unit will feature professional, high-quality, touring productions which will travel to institutions like prisons, juvenile detention facilities, and homeless shelters. Each tour stop will consist of a performance of a classic text, along with the opportunity afterwards to share dialogue with the artists about the themes and issues relevant to the lives of the audience members. Each project partner/tour location will be given a Study Guide to share with their planned audience members, providing more insight into the world of the play.

Friends of Greenbelt Theatre
We the People: Celebrating Maryland’s Diversity
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $4,000

Beginning in February, Friends of Greenbelt Theatre will show monthly free films reflecting Maryland’s diversity. Serving as a microcosm of the nation as a whole, this diversity illustrates that Maryland does indeed live up to its lesser-known nickname “America in Miniature.” Each film will be accompanied by at least one expert guest speaker to introduce the film and lead a post-screening Question & Answer session. Themes to be explored include Black and Women’s History; Jewish, Native American and Hispanic Heritage; and human rights.

From the Heart Productions
Lights of Baltimore
Out of State
Awarded Amount: $10,000

Lights of Baltimore is a documentary feature film offering a portrait of the city after Freddie Gray’s death, which sparked a wave of protests and a war of images surrounding police brutality nationwide. The film will have its initial screenings in international film festivals in the US and in Europe. Local screenings and Q&A sessions will be organized at grassroots community centers and educational screenings will be held in schools. Screenings with panels will be held at local universities and museums.

Jewish Museum of Maryland
Remembering Auschwitz
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $8,000

The Jewish Museum of Maryland will present Remembering Auschwitz, 4 unique exhibits and a companion public program series that shed new light on Holocaust history. A Town Known as Auschwitz: The Life and Death of a Jewish Community – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, tells the story of how a town where Jews had resided for centuries came to be a symbol of the Holocaust. Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz Birkenau Blueprints offers visual evidence of the camps themselves. Loss and Beauty: Photographs by Keron Psillas provides a contemporary perspective on visiting and documenting Auschwitz today. Memory Reconstruction: A Sacred Culture Rebuilt, brings together art and family history – Holocaust survivors and their families create collages reflecting their individual experiences.

Wide Angle Youth Media
The Baltimore Speaks Out Program
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $7,500

The Baltimore Speaks Out Program (BSOP) is a creative youth development program for Baltimore youth, produced in partnership with the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Six free workshops are conducted annually, providing students ages 10-15 with critical thinking, public speaking, community engagement, and media arts skills. BSOP gives youth a hands-on experience in the arts and humanities, learning about the importance of preserving culture through oral history. Through the course of each semester, youth work together to identify a community issue/tradition as a topic and the most effective way to tell their story – whether it is documentary, narrative, or radio – research, and implement a production plan. They then critique their content, assemble elements into a final project, and present their work publicly.

Humanities and the Legacy of Race and Ethnicity in the United States

Dew More Baltimore
Confessions of a City
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $3,000

Confessions of a City is an interpretive multimedia exhibit and discussion series promoting a dialogue on race. Sessions will engage and expose Maryland residents to illuminated triumphs, uncomfortable truths, contemporary complex challenges, alternate perspectives on common topics and surprising facts about Baltimore City. A four-location tour includes two Baltimore City public high schools, MICA and The Living Well or Impact Hub.

Druid Heights Community Development Corporation (DHCDC)
Bridging the Gap
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $3,000

DHCDC will host an event called “Bridging the Gap”, a community engagement project that explores the past, present and future with an intergenerational approach. A day-long program will bring together young people, adults and seniors to share ideas, enjoy poetry and literature, and a skit around contemporary topics, followed by a discussion that includes a diverse intergenerational panel. The program will provide an opportunity for residents of multiple generations to participate in conversations about race, policies and injustices. Participants will create a plan of Action for civic responsibility and community engagement that will encourage future participation in civic events to benefit the neighborhood.

Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center
Urban Express II: Then and Now
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $3,000

Urban Express II: Then and Now will kick off with an exhibit “Baltimore Unrest: 1968×2015.” The front gallery will feature photos from the 1968 Baltimore Riots; the back gallery will feature photos that have been submitted by community members from the Baltimore Uprising of 2015, providing a juxtaposition between two moments of great racial tension in Baltimore City. In conjunction with the exhibit, public programming will include a panel discussion followed by Q&A and a community conversation. Facilitators will discuss their experiences of the Baltimore Riots, followed by a community discussion where the following topics will be addressed: Comparisons between the ‘68 Riots and 2015 Uprising, personal experiences audience members had with the Uprising, the state of racial tensions in Baltimore today, and next steps our community should take.

Heart of the Chesapeake Country Heritage Areas
Reflections on Pine – 50 Years after the Fire
Dorchester County
Awarded Amount: $3,000

The Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area (HCCHA) is working in partnership with the Eastern Shore Network for Change (ESNC) to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 protests that occurred in Cambridge, MD and the subsequent burning of the elementary school and other dwellings on Pine Street. There are multiple components planned for the 4-day commemoration including the collection of oral histories which will serve as the foundation for many other activities including a panel and round table discussion and the creation of a documentary film and printed walking tour brochure. Both the film and the brochure will explore the racial history of Cambridge leading up to the 1967 civil unrest with an emphasis on the oral histories and first person sources.

Stone Soup Productions
Establishment of the Vivien T. Thomas Archive and Annual Celebration of Excellence
Out of State
Awarded Amount: $3,000

The Annual Celebration of Excellence will include a screening of Partners of the Heart followed by a post-screening lecture and Q&A to discuss the history of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore. In coordination with the Celebration of Excellence, will be the creation of a library archive at the Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy in Baltimore with curated source material from Partners of the Heart (including original interviews and extensive archival footage from 1950s Baltimore). Prior to the event, academy students will be provided with Thomas’ autobiography as a learning tool to help stimulate dialogue and questions for the discussion.

July 2016 Mini-Grant Awards

Cecil County Public Library 
Artifacts of Outlander
Cecil County
Awarded Amount: $1,000

Cecil County Public Library will host Artifacts of Outlander, an exhibit curated by the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory at the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (JPPM).  The exhibit, inspired by the Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon and the Outlander television series, showcases artifacts from across the state of Maryland.  During the 1740’s, both Scotland and Maryland were under British rule, and both regions had to rely on Britain for imported goods and supplies. Therefore, the colonial artifacts excavated by archaeologists in Maryland closely correspond to items and materials from 1740’s Scotland.

City Neighbors Foundation 
Does History Still Matter?: A Student Exploration and Documentary
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,000

Over the course of the 2016-2017 school year, fourth and fifth grade students at City Neighbors Hamilton charter school will explore the question of, “Does History Matter?”   Connecting current events to in-depth project studies – the Redskins controversy and Native American history, the Zika virus with the dawn of public health initiatives, the efforts to preserve the Valve House in Baltimore with the Industrial era, and more – students will examine the importance and impact of history.   Culminating their learning, students will host a community event that will premiere a documentary (developed with the help of a local filmmaker) and a set of non-fiction books that address the same question.

Delaplaine Arts Center, Inc. 
Art History Timeline
Frederick County
Awarded Amount: $1,000

The Art History Timeline is a long-term interpretive exhibit providing a history of major art periods and movements, from prehistoric times to the present, through engaging, visually stimulating, and informative panels. The panels will be installed in The Delaplaine Art Center’s main stairwell, ascending from the first floor exhibit spaces to the third floor classrooms and studios. In addition, the timeline will be presented in an attractive printed format, available to visitors at several locations on the ground floor and in the Delaplaine’s library.

Spring 2016 Major Grant Awards

Accokeek Foundation
Dialogues on Race, Agriculture, and Historical Legacy
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $9,950

The Accokeek Foundation will present a living history performance and a forum on Race, Agriculture, and Living History, to examine contemporary and historical perspectives on the relationship between race and agriculture. It will further explore how current approaches to historical interpretation shape people’s understanding of their personal connection to the land. Discussion will focus on how the interpretation of Maryland’s colonial history and legacy of slavery impact the experience of contemporary visitors to historic sites.

B&O Railroad Museum
The B&O Railroad and the Strike of 1877
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $5,000

The B&O Railroad Museum will develop an exhibit focused on the Strike of 1877 and how the B&O Railroad and its workers were involved in beginning the strike. The events of the strike will be interpreted through the exhibit, a traveling exhibit, and related educational materials. They will explain the state of railroading in 1877 and labor conditions leading up to the strike, and the impact of the strike on railroading and the American labor movement.

Maryland Institute College of Art
Laying-by Time: Revisiting the Works of William A. Christenberry 
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The Maryland Institute College of Art will present the public exhibition “Laying-by Time: Revisiting the Works of William A. Christenberry” from December 2016 – March 2017. Christenberry, a celebrated photographer and mixed media artist, is nationally acclaimed for his photographs of the South and related sculptural pieces. The exhibition will feature a cross-section of the artist’s work, from early paintings to recent sculptures. Public programs, including films, curatorial talks, workshops, and panel discussions, will augment the gallery installation and will consider the artist’s work in light of contemporary social, cultural, and political concerns associated with inequity and injustice.

Tilghman Watermen’s Museum
The Tilghman Packing Company: A Documentary
Talbot County
Awarded Amount: $9,500

The Tilghman Watermen’s Museum will produce a twenty-minute documentary film on the Tilghman Packing Company (TPC). At its peak in the 1930s and 40s TPC employed over 600 workers packing and shipping seafood and farm produce throughout the country and was the centerpiece of life on Tilghman Island. The video will use vintage historical footage of the island and the people who ran and worked at TPC, contemporary interviews with former workers at the plant, the museum’s collection of TPC artifacts, and historical photography primarily from the collections of the Talbot Historical Society and Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

Towson University, Department of Theatre Arts
Maryland Consortium Residency Project
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The Maryland Consortium Residency Project is a unique regional collaboration that is rooted in The Acting Company’s 2016-17 repertory of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and a new commissioned play by playwright Marcus Gardley titled X, which explores the life and assassination of Malcolm X. From the fall of 2016 through spring of 2017, four Maryland universities/colleges will participate in the project through classes, workshops, staged readings, and other public events that relate to the themes of X/Julius Caesar. Between February 26 and March 11, 2017, The Acting Company will tour X and Julius Caesar in the Greater Baltimore area, presenting at least 10 performances for student and community audiences. Planned public events include panel discussions, workshops, and post-performance discussions.

University of Maryland, Department of English
Democracy Then and Now: Citizenship and Public Education
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $6,350

Democracy Then and Now: Citizenship and Public Educations is a campus-wide initiative to be held in September–October 2016, in advance of the national elections, which will initiate a long-term engagement with the practice of public education broadly conceived by the founders as an instrument for shaping the political citizen.  The purpose of the initiative is to cause students and faculty to reflect upon the role of education in political inclusion and the benefit of education in terms of political representation and participation. Listen to a conversation between Trevor Parry-Giles (Professor of Communication) and Shirley Logan (Professor of English) on “Rhetoric in American Politics” on WYPR’s MIDDAY program.

March 2016 Opportunity Grant Award

Salisbury University
Inside/Out Philosophy Symposium at Eastern Correctional Institution
Wicomico County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

In conjunction with Salisbury University’s 36th Annual Philosophy Symposium “Justice Inside/Out” and SU Philosophy Department’s Inmate Book Discussion program, Symposium speakers (Lisa Guenther and Rashad Shabazz) and one additional speaker (Jill Stauffer) as well as SU students and professors will participate in philosophy and other humanities activities with inmates at the Eastern Correctional Institution (ECI). These events are designed to celebrate the Philosophy Department’s 15-year anniversary of the Inmate Book Discussion Program at ECI and bring the highest level of humanities programming to an under-served population of Marylanders.

Humanities Fund For Baltimore

Second Round Grantees

Center Stage
CS Mobile Unit: Pilot Program – Incubator Phase
Awarded Amount: $5,000

Inspired by Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah’s work with the NYC Public Theatre’s Mobile Shakespeare Unit, the CS Mobile Unit will feature professional, high-quality, touring productions that will travel to prisons, juvenile detention facilities, homeless shelters, and assisted living facilities free of charge for the partner organizations and their populations.

Eubie Blake Cultural Center
URBAN EXPRESS/Baltimore
Awarded Amount: $5,000

Urban Express/Baltimore is a literary series that will focus on writing as a powerful tool of expression. Targeted to young audiences– ages 21–35 years — this series will specifically feature noted authors of nonfiction works to engage the young people of Baltimore. Audiences will hear from national authors and be inspired to tackle the persuasive skill of writing in the hopes that literary expression will be a first step to action for change.

New Lens
Blackonomics: Housing Event
Awarded Amount: $5,000

The “Blackonomics: Housing” event consists of a film screening, panel, and audience discussion on housing equity issues in Baltimore, issues that are among the root causes of the April 2015 unrest and uprising. The event will invite expression through spoken word performances and interactive audience discussion around how to change the status quo.

Penn North Kids Safe Zone
Our Road to Freedom “A Child’s Journey from the Uprising”
Awarded Amount: $5,000

The Penn North Kids Safe Zone will used mixed media—including paint, personal writings, spoken word, and photography—to illustrate and demonstrate each child’s journey from the Baltimore uprising to present with the goal of giving each child a “voice” to express how their lives were forever changed to an audience of elected officials, community leaders, parents and peers, at a performance and exhibit.

Wide Angle Youth Media
Wide Angle Youth Photography Traveling Exhibit
Awarded Amount: $5,000

As protests took place in April 2015, youth producers at Wide Angle Youth Media began documenting the thoughts of young people in Baltimore through portrait photography and short interviews. Wide Angle will curate a traveling exhibit showcasing these young residents and their stories. The goal of the exhibit is to use creative curation to spark interest in a large and diverse audience to learn more about the positive attributes of Baltimore youth. Selected photographs and writing samples will be debuted in a book to be distributed to community, historical, and educational organizations throughout the city.

 

Fall 2015 Major Grant Awards

Baltimore Museum of Industry
Then & Now: Baltimore Neighborhoods in the Public Eye
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $9,000

The Baltimore Museum of Industry will present a temporary exhibition that will compare historic neighborhood photographs from Baltimore Gas and Electric’s archival collection with contemporary images of the same locations submitted by local residents. The crowd-sourced exhibition will include interpretive text describing the history of the neighborhoods and the economic changes they have experienced during the past century. The exhibition will be on display from February 5th through the end of 2016. Accompanying programming will explore the impact of deindustrialization in Baltimore’s neighborhoods and will include an oral history project/presentation, two lectures, and the screening of the documentary film Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point Steel Mill. All programming will include a Q&A session and time for audience discussion.

Black Mental Health Alliance for Education and Consultation, Inc.
Baltimore Rising: Summoning the Village
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $8,860

Between January and June 2016, the Black Mental Health Alliance (BMHA) will present a monthly speaker series featuring researchers and scholars who will share their knowledge and recommendations on creating a model of healing for those impacted by violence in Baltimore. Before each session, members of BMHA will conduct a survey in a neighborhood impacted by the issues of unemployment, high dropout rates, low birth weights, etc. to access perceived needs and resources currently available and determine plans for positive change in the community. Following each lecture, there will be an opportunity for public facilitated discussion of the topic presented by the speaker.

Center Stage Associates
Anna Deavere Smith: The Prison Pipeline Project
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $7,120

Center Stage Associates will host a documentary theatre performance featuring Anna Deavere Smith that investigates the school-to-prison pipeline – the cycle of suspension from school to incarceration that is prevalent among low-income children of color. Having interviewed hundreds of people with varying degrees of participation in the pipeline, Ms. Smith will perform a monologue based on those conversations. After the performance, facilitators will lead small group discussions with those in attendance.

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Black Theatre Symposium
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $2,500

On April 2, 2016, the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center will host the third Black Theatre Symposium to include panel discussions, workshops and performances. Theatre professionals, scholars, and students will convene to discuss and take action around the topics of inclusion and diversity.

Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center
“Our Baltimore”
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $9,000

In February and March 2016, the Eubie Blake Center will present an exhibit by three generations of photographers from the Phillips family, African-American photographers who worked as freelancers for the Afro-American and Baltimore Sun newspapers. The black and white photographs span from 1940 to the present and highlight urban communities in Baltimore. Companion activities include photo ID sessions, adult storytelling, a panel discussion with photojournalists, a youth photojournalism class, a jazz concert and spoken word event.

The University of Baltimore Division of Legal, Ethical, and Historical Studies
The Uprising in Focus: The Image, Experience, and History of Inequality in Baltimore
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $3,070

The University of Baltimore, in partnership with the National Council on Public History and the UMBC Department of History, will present “The Uprising in Focus,” a facilitated panel discussion designed to engage the public in a conversation about the historical roots and public image of the protest and civil disobedience in Baltimore that surrounded the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.

University of Maryland College Park Department of Art
B’more than the Story
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $7,750

Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts students will collaborate with graphic design students from the University of Maryland to share stories of the uprising, Baltimore history, news media accounts, literature and other sources of information to build a collective narrative of the uprising and its impact on West Baltimore’s high school youth. This will form the foundation for an exhibition to be installed in the Reginald F. Lewis Museum that will coincide with the one-year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death.

Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University
The Delmarvalous Festival: An Eastern Shore Folklife Festival
Wicomico County
Awarded Amount: $6,000

The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University will present the Delmarvalous Lives speaker series, an eight-part educational program focusing on the traditional food-ways, crafts, work, and other traditions of the people of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The speaker series will be based on ethnographic fieldwork by the Museum’s Folklorist, and feature tradition bearers representing different aspects of life on the Eastern Shore (e.g., boat building, baking, crabbing, decoy carving, and Native American traditions). In addition to formal presentations and demonstrations, these tradition bearers will provide interpretive displays and interactive activities to help the visiting public learn about the region’s important folkways.

 

Humanities Fund For Baltimore

First Round Grantees
Afrikan Youth Alchemy
Documentary Film: Inequity in Housing
Awarded Amount: $5,000

The Afrikan Youth Alchemy seeks to develop urban youth to become agents of positive social change. Support from the Maryland Humanities Council will help fund a documentary film made by youth and incorporating youth perspectives that investigates the public housing crisis in Baltimore and gives a historic perspective on how housing inequity and segregation began in the city. This film is intended to capture the dynamic energy of grassroots organizing while allowing residents to vocalize their struggle and resiliency.

CityLit Project
Anniversary of an Uprising with Claudia Rankine
Awarded Amount: $5,000

CityLit Project, with partners Enoch Pratt Free Library and Maryland Institute College of Art, will present acclaimed poet Claudia Rankine to commemorate National Poetry Month and reflect upon the Baltimore uprising’s anniversary.Rankine’s latest book, Citizen: An American Lyric, is a treatise on race in America written in light of the Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner deaths, and was published just months before Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore. Events will feature free readings by the poet, conversation and student-facilitated Q&A sessions at the Brown Center on MICA’s campus on April 15, 2016 and at the epicenter of the uprising at the Pennsylvania Avenue branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library on April 16, 2016.

Promise Heights, University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Social Work
Seeds of Promise Book Club
Awarded Amount: $4,691

The “Seeds of Promise Book Club” is an after-school book club for 80 high school students and young adults who reside in West Baltimore. It will provide an academic exploration of the events that led up to the April 2015 uprising through reading two books, writing, discussion, and community programs. From February to July this year, students will read Monster by Walter Dean Myers and The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. This project aims to use these readings and discussion to engage participants and explore the environment that led to the current conditions that impact boys and men of color, such as racial inequality, the justice system and mass incarceration. Support from the Maryland Humanities Council will help provide free books to book club participants.

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture
All Baltimore Voices: Stories About & Beyond the Unrest
Awarded Amount: $5,000

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture will recognize the one-year commemoration of the Baltimore unrest through exhibitions, public programs, art workshops and a special oral history project, “All Baltimore Voices.” This project will incorporate three components – storytelling, oral histories, and spoken word – to capture the cultural expressions, values and beliefs before, during, and after the April 2015 unrest, in an attempt to answer the question, “How have younger generations been impacted by the city’s turmoil?” From March to June 2016, this project intends to collaborate with audiences to address decades of structural racism and inequity to go beyond the initial outbursts and address direct issues in housing, education, and economic opportunities in predominantly African American communities.

Writers in Baltimore Schools
Black Words Matter
Awarded Amount: $5,000

Black Words Matter is an outgrowth of Writers in Baltimore Schools’ (WBS) annual programming, founded in part by longtime students of the program. Support from the Maryland Humanities Council will enable WBS to hold a series of three youth-focused “Write-Ins,” which will allow youth to express their thoughts and emotions. During these Write-Ins, contemporary poetry speaking to the issues of police brutality and race in America will be read aloud and discussed, followed by writing prompts to inspire their own creative writing. Students can share their writing at the Write-In’s open mic and all pieces will be showcased online at BlackWordsMatter.org. Additionally, Press 421 – a small press in Atlanta – will publish Black Words Matter, an anthology of poems from Baltimore’s youth.

November 2015 Opportunity Grant Award

Community College of Baltimore County
Re-Imagining Baltimore: Creativity, Civic Engagement, and Neighborhood Transformation
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) will present a one-day symposium that features a panel discussion with invited guests Carol Ott and Justin “Nether” Nethercut, members of the Baltimore-based activist collective Wall Hunters. Nether is a street artist whose murals can be found in Baltimore and Ott is a journalist and blogger who uses the Internet to direct attention to the problem of vacant properties (Baltimore Slumlord Watch Blog). The morning panel discussion will explore ways in which art and media can be used to create dialogue around important issues, unite members of the community, and foster feelings of hope and optimism. The afternoon session will feature break out group discussions with Carol Ott meeting with English, History and Social Science faculty and students to discuss blogging as a form of grassroots activism.  Sessions will be moderated by faculty from the English, Sociology, and Art, Design and Interactive Media departments.

Major Grant Awards

Historic Hampton, Inc.
Historic Hampton: Where Maryland History Inspires Art and Innovation
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $5,000

Historic Hampton, Inc. (HHI) will host a year-long series of 14 special events and themed workshops with experts in various fields for students, teachers, and the public, providing transportation for students from underfunded and underserved schools throughout the state. Workshops themes explore local history, social justice, critical analysis and interpretation. Partner organizations include the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore School for the Arts, Baltimore United Viewfinders and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.

Stevenson University
New Roots
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $8,000

Stevenson University will produce a fifty-minute documentary entitled New Roots, formally titled Women Between Worlds, Part 2, that highlights the challenges faced by women who have immigrated to the United States and find themselves between cultures. Between August and December 2015, eleven film screenings and discussions will be held at various locations in Baltimore City and County and Prince George’s County. The film will be accompanied by an exhibition that features the art and crafts traditions of the immigrants.

The Ciesla Foundation
The Rosenwald Schools
Out of State
Awarded Amount: $6,000

The Ciesla Foundation is seeking post-production funding for the film project, The Rosenwald Schools, a documentary chronicling the establishment of the Rosenwald School building program, which provided challenge grants and construction plans to rural African American communities in the South. In Maryland, over 150 schools and related buildings were constructed, 53 of which still stand. Discussions held after film screenings will be led by humanities scholars to focus on the educational and social issue aspects of the film. The screenings and discussions will be held at educational and religious institutions and restored Rosenwald schools around the state.

Towson University
Visions of Place: Complex Geographies in Contemporary Israeli Art
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $6,000

Towson University will present Visions of Place: Complex Geographies in Contemporary Israeli Art, an exhibition with related humanities programming focused around the overall theme of geography in its broadest sense, engaging the public about pressing contemporary issues: competing views of history, disputes over territory, conflict vs. justice, coexistence within a diverse society; gender and sexual orientation, and modernity vs. tradition.

Baltimore Architecture Foundation
Uncovering the History of Past Women Architect
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $2,500

The American Institute of Architects, Baltimore will research and develop a traveling exhibition and related public lectures and roundtable discussions on the history of early women architects in Maryland. The exhibit will open for Women’s History Month in March 2015 and will highlight the work and lives of 10 early licensed women architects. It will be complemented by public lectures, exhibit tours, and discussions with the primary research team, participating students and the general public to offer a dialogue about the history and impact of the women architects on the built environment and the historical, cultural, and social context in which they worked.

Arts Every Day
A Walk Through Shakespeare
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $3,400

In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, Arts Every Day will partner with Baltimore City Public school communities during the 2015-16 school year in an exploration of arts integration through the lens of the Shakespeare’s life, times and work. Partnering with The Folger Shakespeare Library, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Towson University, and The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Arts Every Day will provide teachers, students, and families the opportunity to experience Shakespeare, understand the historical context through artifacts, and engage in performing and visual art-making. Project programming includes: (1) Shakespeare 101 – two days of training with a focus on the life and times of William Shakespeare for 70 teachers from 35 schools. The teachers are expected to share information with their colleagues. (2) Dive into Shakespeare – no less than five schools with receive more intensive involvement with a visiting teaching artist for a Shakespeare residency and an opportunity to experience a Shakespeare performance. A public event will be held to highlight work and performances resulting from students’ interpretation and understanding of William Shakespeare’s language and world. (3) All the World’s a State – a year end student art exhibition at the Walters Art Museum will feature arts-integrated pieces inspired by the exploration of Shakespeare’s life and times.

Fells Point Creative Alliance
After the Border
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

Después de la Frontera/After the Border is a bilingual, traveling exhibition that documents the stories of ten unaccompanied immigrant youth who were forced to leave their homes in Central America and have been reunited within the last year with their families in Baltimore. The exhibit will premiere at the Creative Alliance before moving to Towson University and Baltimore City Hall. Each site will host a discussion with the lead curator, a Latin American scholar, and a youth featured in the exhibition. Additional free educational programming will accompany the exhibit.

Harford Community College Foundation
Voices of Change
Harford County
Awarded Amount: $9,750

The Harford Community College Foundation will host Voices of Change: Social Protest through the Arts & Humanities. This project uses two exhibits and ten programs to stimulate thought and discussion about the ways music, literature, and visual arts have intersected with moments of social protest in the U.S. in the 20th and 21st centuries. The exhibit is organized around four main themes: war and peace; labor and economic justice; human/civil rights; and environmental, agricultural, and health concerns. Programs accompanying the exhibit include six lectures with discussion, two poetry jams, three film screenings/discussions, and the closing Earth Day ceremony. All events are free and open to the public. Attendance is predicted to reach almost 700.

Lost Towns Project, Inc.
Four Rivers Heritage Area in 40 Artifacts: Accessing the County’s Archaeological Collections
Anne Arundel County
Awarded Amount: $3,400

The Lost Towns Project, Inc. requests funding to support a public lecture series and related programming that will supplement and enhance the development of four archeological mini-exhibits keyed to four significant calendar milestones in the Four Rivers Heritage Area. The exhibits of ten artifacts will be placed at public venues to arouse the interest of viewers, encourage them to seek out heritage sites and events, and inspire them to visit the companion virtual exhibit which will be available online. Each exhibit and accompanying lecture program will highlight how archaeology and material culture has informed and broadened our knowledge of local history. Placing exhibits in commercial, public, tourism-based venues will expand the usual audience for museum and humanities programming, and it is hoped the attendance at the lectures.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African-American History & Culture
Ruth Starr Rose (1896-1965): Revelations of African American Life in Maryland and the World
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $6,750

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture will present the exhibit “Ruth Starr Rose (1896-1965): Revelations of African American Life in Maryland and the World.” It features early-20th-century portraits of African American’s by Ruth Starr Rose, a white artist from Eastern Shore privilege. The project includes the touring exhibition, expanded interpretative signage, additions to oral history collections, musical performances, panel discussions, genealogy workshops and curricula for K-12 teachers on target topics in archaeology, art history, spiritual life, and Eastern Shore/Chesapeake Bay small community life.

The Walters Art Museum
Humanities Programming for “Pearls on a String: Art in the Age of Great Islamic Empires”
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The Walters Art Museum will present humanities-based programs during “Pearls on a String: Art in the Age of Great Islamic Empires,” the first international loan exhibition of Islamic art and objects to foreground stories about people and to emphasize the role of relationships in inspiring and sustaining creativity. Film screenings and discussions, symposium with questions and answer session and an interpretive poetry exhibit are components of the programming.

UMBC
Mapping Dialogues: Deindustrialization in Baltimore
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The project centers on the history and culture of industrial neighborhoods in Baltimore using two interrelated yet geographically separate areas – the Baybrook and Sparrows Point Steel Mill communities. Participants will interact with large maps to engage in conversation and share their stories and memories of how neighborhoods change when industry declines and leaves. It is part of a larger, ongoing project at UMBC that explores the experiences of past and present residents and workers and the effect of deindustrialization on historic industrial communities. A community dialogue will be held in each neighborhood. At each event an estimated 50-75 participants will examine the history and culture of their industrial neighborhood. They will create personal maps of places in the community that matter to them. A final dialogue will be held at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, featuring the public presentation of the project’s interpretive content, including a short film from the previous two dialogues.

 

Opportunity Grant Awards

Historic Annapolis Foundation
Teacher Workshops on 18th Century Slavery and African American History
Anne Arundel County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Historic Annapolis will facilitate two free three-hour workshops entitled “Storytelling for Teachers: Classroom History!” which will train teachers on how to present information on slavery and African American history in the 18th century. In an effort to better understand the history and how to present it to students in the classroom, Historic Annapolis will work with Dylan Pritchett, a professional storyteller and one of the lead developers of the African American interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg. Pritchett will lead the workshops in which he will guide both middle and high school level teachers through a variety of activities to analyze and organize primary documents and create story presentations for their classrooms.

Annapolis Community Foundation
Treaty of Paris Center
Anne Arundel County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Created under the Annapolis Community Foundation, The Treaty of Paris Center is a once a month “open house” that brings to life the 1783-87 Treaty of Paris Period, between the Revolution and the Constitution, through exhibits, films, lectures, walking tours, interactive computer screens and costumed personnel. Major events of the period include signing the Treaty of Paris, Congress coming to Annapolis, George Washington’s Army resignation, ratifying the Treaty of Paris, Thomas Jefferson’s appointment to France, the 1785 Mount Vernon Compact, the 1786 Annapolis Convention, Shay’s Rebellion and the start of the Constitutional Convention. In June, the Center will begin an enhanced, year-long program with guest speakers, re-enactments and increased walking tours. MHC funds would be used to rent space for the exhibit each month at the Maryland Inn.

City Neighbors Foundation
Does History Matter?: A Student Exploration
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Taking place at City Neighbors, Hamilton school, “Does History Matter?” is a long-term project involving ten and eleven-year old students. The students will engage in four historical studies – the 200 year celebration of the War of 1812, the controversy over the Redskins name, the preservation of Clifton Park’s Valve House, and the efforts to curb the Ebola outbreak. The students will produce a documentary depicting their quest to answer the question “Does History Matter” and their final thoughts and an artistic panel timeline connecting past and present. These products will be premiered at a free spring event open to the general public.

Major Grant Awards

Accokeek Foundation
Accokeek Foundation’s Food for Thought Festival
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $9,000

The Accokeek Foundation will host the outdoor, one-day Food for Thought festival in September 2014. The festival will use history, theatre, and ethics to engage diverse audiences in activities about the critical issue of agricultural sustainability and food systems in Southern Maryland. Programs at the festival seek to provide historical context for and engage the public in a conversation around the question, “Should we return to a locally-sourced food system, like our ancestors had?” Programs will also explore subthemes of biodiversity and cultural history, as well as the effects of policy decisions on community life.

Migrant Clinicians Network
Sharing Stories Through Images: A Humanistic Look at Immigrants on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
St. Mary’s County
Awarded Amount: $10,000

Migrant Clinicians Network will produce an eight-week exhibition of 50 photographs and text portraying Eastern Shore immigrant families and individuals. The exhibit will open in September 2014 and be housed in Salisbury University’s downtown gallery. During the exhibit opening, a panel discussion will include an immigrant who is the subject of some of the images, and experts in photojournalism (specifically Earl Dotter, the photographer for the project), cultural studies, immigration and migrant health. In addition to the panel discussion, the panel moderator will invite the audience to engage with panelists and share personal narratives.

PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Writers in Schools – Baltimore
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $8,000

In the 2014/2015 school year, PEN/Faulkner Foundation will host 45 author visits, working with 14 teachers and 550 students in Baltimore City Public Schools. PEN/Faulkner will donate books to participating students/schools, conduct training with teachers in how to use the toolkit, and bring authors to the schools for author visits. The program is free to schools and their students. Any teacher in a Baltimore City public or public charter high school can participate in Writers in Schools by visiting the PEN/Faulkner website, reviewing author bios and lesson plans (which are aligned with Common Core), and requesting an author visit. Books are sent to the school one month prior to the author visit. Teachers use the toolkit consisting of lesson plans, teaching tools and supplementary resources to prepare the students through discussions of the text, author research, and the development of quality questions for the author’s visit. The visiting author may read from his or her text and the structure is meant to be interactive.

The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
Moving History: Stepping Down the Path of Peabody Dance through 100 Years of Maryland History Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $5,500

The Peabody Institute will create a traveling exhibition on the history of Peabody Dance within the context of dance in Baltimore and the state, major historical dance figures, and national dance movements. The exhibition will include facsimiles of ephemera related to Peabody Dance, costumes, stage notes, choreographic records, as well as videos, including five historical films recently restored by the National Film Preservation Foundation and dating back to the 1930s. An interactive component will solicit statements from attendees about their local dance communities. Exhibition tour stops will be in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Harford County, and Howard County. The program will also include a living history performance by Peabody’s Estelle Dennis/Peabody Dance Boys Program. “Moving History” is part of a larger centennial celebration of Peabody Dance.

Wide Angle Youth Media
International Radio Project
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $3,300

Wide Angle Youth Media will hold an International Radio Workshop for 10 Baltimore City teens. During the workshop, they will communicate via Skype with their peers working with the Children’s Radio Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa. Both groups of students will create short audio stories about how physical spaces in cities affect individuals and communities. The students’ exploration of physical spaces will be guided by an anthropologist with expertise in Baltimore and South Africa who will teach the students about human geography and the urban culture of South Africa. The Baltimore students will also produce a digital component that will be shared online and in a public presentation of the finished audio projects at the conclusion of the workshop.

Baltimore Museum of Industry
Making Music: The Banjo in Baltimore and Beyond
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

Baltimore Museum of Industry will create an April – October 2014 exhibition and public programs on the banjo’s historical, cultural and manufacturing heritage in Baltimore and Maryland. The project will examine the banjo’s nearly 400-year history from its Afro-Caribbean roots—created and maintained by enslaved Africans and their descendants—to its rise in nineteenth-century American popular music. The exhibit content and public programs including concerts, workshops and a two-day conference, will explore the ways that race, gender, and class are embedded in the history of the instrument.

Center Stage Associates
Trayvon Moments
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $4,200

In February 2014, Center Stage will commission four local artists to partner with four local Baltimore organizations to create community dialogue and performance pieces around the Trayvon Martin incident and gun violence. Performances, followed by moderated discussions led by skilled facilitators, will be free and will take place at Park Heights Zeta Community Center, Mondawmin Mall Community Room, Cherry Hill Senior Life Center, and Seventh Metro Baptist Church. Community partners include Baltimore City Health Department Safe Streets Program, Leaders for a Beautiful Struggle (LBS Baltimore), The Intersection Baltimore, Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University.

Community Mediation Maryland
Civic Reflection: Inside and Out
Montgomery County
Awarded Amount: $9,426

Community Mediation Maryland will use humanities texts such as short readings from the anthologies The Civically Engaged Reader, The Conscious Reader, and Taking Action: A Reader to bring reflections on literature into their prisoner re-entry mediation work. Through re-entry mediation, community mediation staff meets with inmates preparing for release 12-24 months before their release and offer mediation services. This project will help Community Mediation Maryland deepen and broaden the conversation with prisoners about what it means to be part of a community and what it will mean to re-enter the outside community. Community Mediation Maryland will also hold dialogues using humanities texts with the volunteers who conduct prisoner re-entry mediations.

Jewish Museum of Maryland*
Mendes Cohen Living History Character
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $8,200

The Jewish Museum of Maryland will educate students, Maryland residents, and tourists about the role of Jews in the state’s early history by exploring the life of one famous Jewish Marylander. An living history actor will portray Mendes Cohen, War of 1812 veteran and member of a prominent Jewish family in 19th century Baltimore, during a 45 minute performance. Audiences will learn about the exceptional events of Cohen’s life and how he helped shape Maryland history and have the opportunity to ask questions and interact with him during and after the performance. The performances will complement a planned exhibition “The A-maze-ing Mendes Cohen” opening at the Museum in 2014. *This grant has been financed with State Funds from the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, an instrumentality of the State of Maryland.

Loyola University Maryland
Conversations with Oedipus
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $5,000

Loyola University Maryland will organize a series of programs in October 2014 examining the contemporary value of ancient theater. The programs will include free public lectures, educational workshops for under-privileged middle and high school students and college students, a free production of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, and a postperformance discussion. Loyola classics scholar, Dr. David Jacobson’s talk will spark a conversation about Greek tragedy and what it has to offer us today. Dr. Al Duncan’s lecture will explore the theme of information gathering and political action in Oedipus and show how this theme pertains to today’s political landscape and the National Security Agency.

Sandy Spring Museum
Local Traditions
Montgomery County
Awarded Amount: $4,600

Sandy Spring Museum’s three-part project includes folk-life fieldwork, public programs, and a community-curated exhibit to share residents’ local traditions. A folklorist will document area folklife traditions and build relationships with newer residents of the community whose history and traditions are not currently represented in the museum. Programs will invite the public to share folk traditions that tell a significant story about their family’s history around immigration, religion and foodways. A community-curated exhibit will bring together the traditions that residents shared with the folklorist and in the public programs and juxtapose the folk traditions of historic Sandy Spring with modern-day folk traditions.

Opportunity Grant Awards

Harford County Public Library
Just Write. Writers Conference.
Harford County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Just Write. Writers Conference. will bring regional authors, agents, and small press publishers to the Bel Air branch of the Harford County Public Library to share their insights and experience with the community. The conference will support attendees’ creative and artistic expression and strengthen skills needed to communicate successfully within all aspects of life. Just Write. is open to adults as well as high school juniors and seniors. It will be held Sunday, September 28, 2014 from 8am to 6pm. Participants will choose 5 of the 25 offered workshop, panel, and discussion sessions to attend. Each session will provide practical, relevant discussion and examples for emerging authors and writers of all levels.

Maryland State Archives
American Archives Month in Maryland
Anne Arundel County
Awarded Amount: $1,000

The Maryland State Archives will celebrate American Archives Month by hosting a free Family History Festival on Saturday, October 4, 2014 from 10:00am to 4:00pm in Annapolis. This open house-style event will feature expert lectures on genealogy, history, and archival research; demonstrations on caring for family papers and photos; “break through your brick wall” sessions for family genealogists; seminars on imaging techniques; behind the scenes tours of the stacks and the lab; and children’s activities highlighting family history.

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance
2014 Nanticoke River Jamboree: “400 Years in Indiantown”
Dorchester County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance (NHPA) will hold its 5th annual outdoor Jamboree on October 11, 2014 on the grounds of Handsell, a former 18th-century plantation located near Vienna, Maryland. The Jamboree will showcase the 400-year history of the surrounding area through historic displays, performances by professional reenactors, screenings of the award-winning film, “Voices of the Indiantown,” an active archaeology site with trained volunteers demonstrating how to sift for artifacts, and tours of the Handsell plantation. One of the centerpieces of the event will be the authentic Native-American longhouse, completed this year. Visitors will also be able to walk, bike, and experience guided kayak tours of the Nanticoke River.

Afro American Historical & Genealogical Society, Prince George’s County Maryland Chapter|
Maryland Legacy Day: Celebrating 150 Years of Freedom
Prince George’s County
Amount Awarded: $1,195

The Maryland Legacy Day program will celebrate and examine the history of the 1864 Maryland Constitution, which freed Maryland’s slaves on November 1, 1864. The free, one-day, event at Prince George’s Community College on November 15, 2014 will feature keynote speaker, Dr. Lenneal Henderson. The keynote will be followed by a panel discussion with experts in the history of slavery and emancipation in Maryland. Gospel singers and the Female ReEnactors of Distinction (FREED) re-enactors will also participate in the program.

Baltimore City Historical Society
Roots & Branch: New Perspectives on the Baltimore NAACP and Civil Rights in the 20th Century
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The Baltimore City Historical Society and the Department of History and Geography at Morgan State University are hosting a daylong conference in May 2014 to explore the history of the NAACP in Baltimore. Historians and members of the public are invited to the conference which will consist of lecture sessions and panel discussions. Some of the key questions that the conference will address are: what historical circumstances existed which led to the establishment of a NAACP Branch in Baltimore and how did the work of the branch blend directives from the NAACP’s New York headquarters with the goals, resources, and tactical expertise of local people on the ground in Baltimore?

Major Grant Award

St. Michaels Museum at St. Mary’s Square*
1812 Profiles of Patriots
Talbot County
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The St. Michaels Museum at St. Mary’s Square will host performances of 6 monologues based on the lives of six people who figured in the town’s role in the War of 1812. The presentations will take place from midAugust – October 2013. Historic figures who will be featured in the performances are James Madison with the Declaration of War against the British on June 18 th, 1812; Jacob Gibson and San Domingo Creek; Brigadier General Perry Benson and the Independent Light Dragoons; an African American female slave; and Mary Young Pickersgill who fabricated the Star Spangled Banner. *This grant has been financed with State Funds from the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, an instrumentality of the State of Maryland.

Academy Art Museum
Joint Heritage at Wye House
Talbot County
Awarded Amount: $7,000

Academy Art Museum’s interpretive exhibition draws on new archaeological evidence, unpublished archival sources, household objects, books, recipe collections, maps, and artwork. The exhibit will highlight how the emerging archaeological and historical record reveals the complexities of co-existing cultures at the Talbot County plantation, Wye House, focusing on the pre and post-Civil War periods. Programming accompanying the exhibit will include: a searchable database of plantation residents, maps, and farm inventories; curator-led tours; teacher orientation; lectures on archaeology, the Emancipation Proclamation, and southern cuisine; and an interpretive brochure that explores both the context and significance of artifacts displayed. The project is a collaboration with University of Maryland’s Dept. of Anthropology which has conducted research onsite since 2006.

Calvert Marine Museum Society*
The War of 1812: A Legacy of Division
Calvert County
Awarded Amount: $4,213

Project partners Calvert Marine Museum, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, and the College of Southern Maryland will present six lectures that explore multiple perspectives on the War of 1812. Speakers include a museum exhibit developer who worked on two War of 1812 exhibits, a writer who has researched the Great Lakes theater of the war, an historian on how the popular press was used, a presentation that combines lecture with original songs, a recognized Native American historian on the conflict from the Native perspective, and an art historian who curated the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibit on the War of 1812. The lectures will be held monthly on Sunday afternoons from Sept. 2013 – May 2014 at the College of Southern Maryland, Prince Frederick. An online forum will extend the experience and invite greater participation. *This grant has been financed with State Funds from the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, an instrumentality of the State of Maryland.

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Civil War/Civil Rights: The Well-Being of A Nation
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $5,200

“Civil War/Civil Rights: The Well-Being of A Nation” is a nationally focused two day symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation that will feature humanities presentations exploring the ongoing fight for equality and civil rights. The keynote speaker will be Julian Bond; Liz Lerman and Vincent Thomas will lead a reflection activity; Dean Don Kettl of University of Maryland will introduce a series of TED-style talks to address “Jobs and Freedom: How Far Have We Come?”; and DC Public Radio talk show host Kojo Nnamdi will lead a roundtable conversation focused on “Rights, Equality and the American Dream.” Marian Wright Edelman will give the final keynote with “Still Marching: The Work That Lies Ahead.” Touré, author and MSNBC co-host of The Cycle, will conclude the symposium. The project will also include Creative Dialogues, a free series of panel discussions moderated by Kojo Nnamdi covering the topics “From Lincoln to King to Obama: Inspirational Speaking in Public Life”; “Marriage Equality and the Church”; and “Frederick Douglass and Ireland.”

Harford Community College Foundation, Inc.
Faces of Freedom: Harford County, Maryland and Beyond
Harford County
Awarded Amount: $7,600

The “Faces of Freedom” project uses several humanities disciplines to explore the meaning of freedom generally and specifically in the Upper Chesapeake before, during, and in the aftermath of the Civil War and Emancipation. Through performance and discussion of a play, book and film discussions, an exhibit, and a lecture and discussion series, the project will inspire learning and community engagement about freedom, slavery and emancipation. The exhibit and programs will emphasize Harford County stories of the Underground Railroad. The project commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Maryland Constitution of 1864, which ended slavery here. It involves different departments at HCC as well as the Hays-Heighe House, Rites of Passage Mentoring Program, Hosanna School Museum, and the Historical Society of Harford County.

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance, Inc. (NHPA)
African-American Sharecroppers of Indiantown (Dorchester County) Maryland
Dorchester County
Awarded Amount: $9,000

Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance will complete a 15-20 minute video, based on interviews and photos of the Jackson, Pinder, and Robinson families, descendants of free and enslaved people owned by the Steele family on the Handsell plantation in Vienna. After Emancipation many of the families opted to stay in the area and sharecrop the land, working and living together, until the last descendant left in the 1990s. The film will be shown to a variety of audiences across the Eastern Shore at venues such as Dorchester County Historical Society, Vienna Community Center, Nabb Center for Delmarva History at Salisbury University, public libraries in nearby counties, reunions of the local families, and at the Banneker Douglass Museum in Annapolis. A copy of the film will be distributed to Dorchester County Schools and posted on the internet. Discussions will follow screenings and a reading list on local African American history will be developed.

Painted Screen Society of Baltimore, Inc.
From Little Bohemia to Middle East: 100 Years of Painted Screens
Baltimore City
Awarded Amoutn: $7,000

Painted Screen Society will collaborate with residents and community groups in the Middle East neighborhood to restore knowledge and presence of painted screens to their birthplace through a series of community discussions, field trips to exhibitions, a book release on the subject, and a film screening that link the historic and present community with the built environment. Residents and community experts will share knowledge with scholars of place and traditional screen painters at a street festival event land marking the corner grocery store where the first painted screen was created in Baltimore 100 years ago.

Frostburg State University
Frederick Douglass, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Constitution: 1845 Workshop
Allegany County
Awarded Amount: $6,276

Frostburg State University is organizing a 2-day workshop to introduce a pedagogical game called Frederick Douglass, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Constitution: 1845. This recently developed role-playing game is part of a program called Reacting to the Past, where students immerse themselves in a historical context by adopting roles, informed by classic texts, and acting out controversies of the past. The Frederick Douglass game introduces students to a time and place when advocating an end to slavery was far more controversial than supporting its perpetuation. Debates focus on the intellectual and cultural clashes between the Defenders of the Constitution and the Abolitionists. FSU plans to expand the audience for this workshop to make it a public event that educates the community about the history of slavery in Maryland and fosters an ongoing dialogue about causes and effects of racism.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
State of the Oyster
Talbot County
Awarded Amount: $6,286

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is planning a series of community conversations focused on the status of the Chesapeake oyster fisheries and their past, present, and future significance to Bay-area cultural groups. These conversations will pose the question of whether and how oyster production can continue as a significant part of the region’s culture and economy. Biological dimensions will be addressed, but the primary focus will be on the cultural and social dynamics of the issue. Four free dialogue-based programs will take place with each session focusing on a particular dimension of the topic. Dialogues will use art, photography, video clips, films and panelists—humanities scholars, oyster researchers, and oyster harvesters and processors—to set the context and incorporate questions and comments from the audience and small-group, moderated discussions between the presenters and the public.

Civic Works
Revisiting 1812 at Captain Henry Thompson’s Clifton, Home of Service in Baltimore
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

Civic Works plans to open Clifton Mansion as a cultural resource for the community and tell the story of Clifton’s role as the Home of Service in Baltimore based on the histories of previous owners: militia captain in the War of 1812, Henry Thompson; philanthropist Johns Hopkins; recreation center for Baltimore City; and home of Civic Works. Civic Works is planning annual Defender’s Day events in October 2013 and 2014 on the lawn at Clifton Mansion. These events will include a living history presentation by “Captain Henry Thompson,” tours, food, games of the early 1800s, cavalry re-enactors, historical presentations by authors and period musicians. Preparations will include an April 2013 costume workshop as well as a cell-phone tour developed by students in the Public History class at UMBC.

Creative Alliance
Globe Poster: Not To Be Missed!
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $10,000

The Globe Poster Printing Corp. was a family owned and operated company based in Baltimore from 1929 to 2010 that produced some of the most iconic posters for America’s most influential musical acts. Globe Poster: Not To Be Missed!, at the Creative Alliance April 27 – June 8, 2013, is an exhibition of posters, printing tools and artifacts investigating Globe’s story through the lens of African-American music history from 1955-1998 supplemented with programming including art workshops, panel discussions, films, docent-led tours, and performances. Music history will serve as a point for visitors to participate in a dialogue about the language of music and its positive role in culture and community building. This project is a collaboration between the Creative Alliance and Maryland Institute College of Art.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County – Department of American Studies
Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $3,211

This project, Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions, consists of classroom visits, a public tour of sites in the story of the Catonsville Nine, film screenings, a public dialogue, and the creation of mobile mapping software highlighting key sites. Two audiences serve as the initial base for this project—students and community-based activists—additionally the applicants seek to engage the general public and especially the community of Catonsville. Humanities content includes panels of humanities scholars whose expertise is civil protest and Viet Nam; the book, The Catonsville Nine; two films “The Investigation of A Flame” and “Hit and Stay” and will engage audiences about not only the historical significance of the actions of the Catonsville Nine, but also how we think about social protest, civic duty, and citizenship for our time.

Opportunity Grant Awards

Stevenson University Archives
Hallowed Beauty: A Regional Exhibition of Sacred Art and Text
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Stevenson University will create a brochure/catalog to accompany the exhibition “Hallowed Beauty: A regional exhibition of sacred art and text.” The exhibition focuses on art and text found in local institutional collections which is considered sacred by a diverse representation of religions and belief systems. The exhibition provides opportunities to initiate a conversation with the public regarding the dual existence of these objects as both sacred works and, alternatively, as secular items worthy of research by various disciplines of the humanities as well as tradesmen and craftspeople. Partner institutions are Towson University, Loyola-Notre Dame, and the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

dog & pony dc
Silver Spring Repertory
Montgomery County
Awarded Amount: $745

dog & pony dc, “in residence” at Round House Theatre Silver Spring in September/October 2013, will host a free panel discussion series exploring the broader themes of the 3 shows being produced in repertory (Beertown, A Killing Game, and Toast) and their intersection with contemporary Montgomery County issues. The discussions will explore the relationships of objects and their associated stories to memory formation, the rising popularity of apocalyptic narratives in pop culture, and the “myths” surrounding scientific discoveries and inventions. The series will place Maryland citizens in an arts-integrated education setting with local scholars and experts, with whom they can reflect, question, and learn.

Hyattstown Mill Arts Project
Disappearing Agricultural Landscapes
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $1,194

The Hyattstown Mill Arts Project is creating an interpretive exhibition that examines the development of Prince George’s County as it has evolved from an agrarian community to beltway metropolitan area. The exhibition will be located at the United States District Court, Greenbelt Division. Culled from over six hundred negatives on file at MNCCPC Prince George’s County, the exhibition will consist of 60 previously unpublished images, accompanied by appropriate contextual signage, identifying architectural structures, viewscapes, agricultural industries, and a way of life that has been lost to contemporary urban expansion. The exhibition will have particular emphasis on tobacco farming, as Prince George’s County was once Maryland’s leading producer of tobacco.

Washington County Free Library
Storyfest in the Park
Washington County:
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The Washington County Free Library (WCFL) is hosting Storyfest in the Park, an afternoon of storytelling, at Hagerstown City Park on July 21, 2013. Nationally-recognized storytellers Ann Griffith, Diane Macklin and Jon Spelman will provide interactive storytelling sessions. Several children’s storytellers from the surrounding area will also participate. Additionally, the locally based Authentic Community Theatre will perform. Featured storytellers will present culturally diverse programs over four hours. Each storyteller will perform a 40-45 minute program. Local storytellers will perform short stories between acts. Partners in the series include Neighborhoods First and the City of Hagerstown.

Allegany Museum
Preserving Our Musical Heritage: From Britain to the Blue Ridge
Allegany County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The Allegany Museum will trace the journey of early American music from the 17th and 18th century British Isles to the Appalachian Mountains through a museum exhibition of photographs, musical instruments, and historical recording equipment. There will be activities for school age children that will accompany the exhibition. Additionally, the project will include a symposium featuring presentations by folklorists and scholars of the music of the Appalachian Mountains. The symposium will conclude with a concert of Appalachian ballads and dulcimer music. Lastly, there will be a film screening at the Allegany Museum of the movie “Song Catcher.”

Little Patuxent Review
Fall Writers Festival/National Day of Writing
Howard County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

Little Patuxent Review will bring visiting authors to participating middle school writing classes to prepare students for the Fall Writers’ Festival/National Day of Writing. At the Fall Writers’ Festival students will work in small groups to practice integrative writing on a variety of topics. The students will then meet again with visiting authors to work with the writers on editing and polishing their written pieces. Lastly, the visiting authors will present readings of their works and students will have the opportunity to share their works during an Open Mic session.

Julia A. Purnell Museum
Julia A. Purnell Museum Traveling Exhibit
Worcester County
Awarded Amount: $400

The Julia A. Purnell Museum will create a double-fold display panel with introductory information on the Julia A. Purnell Museum and the history of Snow Hill, Worcester County, and the lower shore. The panel will also feature the Museum’s Guess the Artifact game which museum educators will present alongside reproductions of artifacts. Museum educators will use the traveling exhibit at regional events and schools to teach groups.

Major Grant Awards

Center Stage Associates
“The Whipping Man” Community Engagement
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $7,900

In spring 2012, CENTERSTAGE will present contemporary playwright Matthew Lopez’ “The Whipping Man.” Set in the post-Civil War era, this historical drama probes themes of racial, cultural, and religious identity and explores definitions of freedom and justice. A variety of community engagement events will support the production. All programming will be designed to foster constructive dialogue framed by the struggles and successes that link Maryland’s Jewish and African American communities.

Harford County Public Library
Journey Stories Project
Harford County
Awarded Amount: $5,000

Harford County Library is one of five sites selected to partner with MHC to present Journey Stories, our latest Museum on Main Street traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian. Dozens of programs will take place over a 3- month period in six library locations and on-line. Exhibits expressing how various cultures came to America, merged with exhibits depicting local versions of those stories will inform the programs.

Walters Art Museum
Our History/Whose History? The African Presence in Renaissance Europe
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $9,000

The Walters Art Museum will present three inter-related public programs for a range of audiences during its special exhibition, “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe.” At first event, a public forum, noted scholars will explore the experience and societal contributions of Africans in Renaissance Europe. Moderator Farai Chideya will facilitate the community audience in a discussion with the speakers. “Othello Today” will be a public conversation on the subject of blacks and blackness in Shakespeare’s play. The third program is a competition for Maryland students in grades 6-12 wherein participants will submit their essays, poems, or visual or performance art which they create in response to works of art in the exhibition. Student works will be displayed in the exhibition and on the Walters website. The overall goals are to extend public dialogue on the relationship of cultural and racial identity and expand the perception of shared heritage.

Clarice Smith Performance Arts Center
Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $9,000

Fortune was a slave in 18th century Connecticut. When he died, his owner, a physician, dissected and preserved the skeleton so that its anatomy could be studied and used for teaching purposes. A eulogy honoring Fortune was composed by a former Connecticut poet laureate, and later developed into a full length cantata for orchestra chorus, African drumming ensemble, and vocals and will be performed in conjunction with an extended series of communitywide programming that will encourage participants to discuss the ethics around cases like Fortune’s and others.

Maryland Historical Society
The Civil War and Divided Voices: Reaching Out Through the Humanities
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $9,000

Living history actors will travel to six locations in the Baltimore region to present historical events and characters from the Civil War. The Players will also interpret selected objects from the Historical Society exhibition “Divided Voices: Maryland in the Civil War.” A question and answer discussion will follow each presentation, with conversation about the themes, characters and objects presented, relating the history portrayed to contemporary events.

Appalachian Independent
Many Voices/One Vision
Allegany County
Awarded Amount: $8,000

This year-long project engages a coalition of Western Maryland organizations and educational institutions in generating citizen dialogue about the question “How do we embrace what we value in our community while moving towards a healthier, more sustainable future?” Using the online, nonprofit community newspaper, Appalachian Independent (AppIndie), as the repository for project conversations about environmental issues, the project will generate a vision for the future of the area with a culminating product, the One Vision/Many Voices music video. It will also inspire citizens to preserve their natural heritage and continue future dialogues. This multi-faceted project involves a variety of formats, including community conversations bicycle tour of Garrett and Allegany Counties, a community visioning event, a film series with discussions on important local issues, library and local history museum displays, college level environmental wellness courses at Evergreen Heritage Center led by Magpie, a One Vision/Many Voices community concert, a song-telling workshop, and a final exhibition of the community vision statement and the project music video followed by audience dialogue.

Directing Dissent, LLC
Directing Dissent
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $7,000

Directing Dissent is a film about Marylander John Roemer, a social activist (CORE and Maryland ACLU director) and Baltimore high school teacher. His story takes us through the heated battles of the Civil Rights Movement, and involves dramatic experiences in the fight to desegregate Maryland. The film will be supported by community and educational outreach events aimed at engaging Maryland communities in an ongoing dialogue abound civil rights, civil liberties, and civic engagement. Set in Maryland, the film uses location shots, news outtakes, archival footage, graphics, photographs, and interview footage. Public post-screening discussions of the film will be facilitated by humanities scholars and media professionals. Directing Dissent also aims to establish an online forum for students and community members to publish their own stories of civil rights. An educational guide will be distributed with the film to secondary schools and universities for use in the classroom. The guide is designed for students to develop a critical literacy of film and media, as well as to analyze the contemporary relevancy of civil rights, civil liberties, and political activism.

Adkins Arboreteum
Exploring Nature’s Role in the Underground Railroad – Audio Tour
Caroline County
Awarded Amount: $8,000

This project will explore nature’s role in the Underground Railroad (UGRR) by producing an educational audio tour with professionally recorded stories, music and sounds to stimulate the participants’ imagination, enhance their understanding of the UGRR, and invoke a personal emotional response or connection. Tours will be available on twenty hand held devices that can be borrowed during a visit to the Arboretum. To support the audio tour, five thousand rack cards will be printed and attached to audio tour maps and twelve interpretative signs will be amended with UGRR information. Arboretum docents and volunteers will be trained to discuss techniques and issues involved in interpreting slavery and the UGRR in their guided walks. Visitors will be encouraged to sign the program log book to share their thoughts regarding the tour experience. Selected comments from this log will be used in the Arboretum’s Blog. Scholars, naturalists, and program participants will be encouraged to engage in the blog dialog to keep the discussion thought-provoking and dynamic.

B&O Railroad Museum
Lincoln’s Train Trips
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $6,800

The B&O Railroad Museum will develop a specially designed traveling exhibit focused on the train voyages Abraham Lincoln made during his presidency and use this to engage a broad audience in a dialogue regarding Lincoln and his interactions with the B&O Railroad and the role of railroading during the Civil War. Initially, the exhibit will be in the Roundhouse of the B&O. Docents will lead discussions focused on Lincoln and his train journeys using the exhibit to contextualize the stories. The exhibit will then travel to transportation museums affiliated with the B& O (i.e. Ellicott City Station, Oakland Station). QR codes, a video that supports the exhibit’s content, and a docent interaction manual that provides volunteers with information related to the project as well as strategies for engaging visitors in discussions about the exhibit and video are also part of the project. After an evaluation of this initial phase, the B & O hopes to continue to travel the exhibit to other venues.

Calvert Marine Museum
Distance Learning at the Calvert Marine Museum
Calvert County
Awarded Amount: $2,500

Calvert Marine Museum (CMM) proposes to set up a Distance Learning Grant Fund for Title One or Targeted Assistance K-8 classrooms in Maryland so that these new, targeted audiences can participate in their Distance Learning Program. In real time, teachers can bring a museum expert into their classroom to deliver a live interactive program tailored to the students’ needs using point-to-point video conferencing technology via the internet. The equipment required for this program is common in many schools, but frequently underutilized due to lack of technical support, or lack of funds for the programs. Trained museum educators present the program, working in partnership with the classroom teacher. The museum educator is able to see the students, ask questions, call on individuals, direct discussion, and oversee small group activities. Pre- and post-program materials are sent to the teacher via the internet. CMM works through The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) to promote programs, register schools, and collect evaluations.

Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture – UMBC
For All the World to Hear: Stories from the Struggle for Civil Rights
Baltimore County
Awarded Amount: $8,000

This proposal extends the CADVC at UMBC’s current humanities exhibition, website, and book, “For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights” to diverse communities in central Maryland with this year-long project in which seniors from the Greater Baltimore area write, tell, and perform their personal stories about their involvement with the struggle for civil rights. The exhibit, created in partnership with the National Museum of African American History, has been displayed at the Smithsonian and the National Civil Rights Museum (Memphis) and will travel as part of NEH’s “On the Road” initiative. The exhibit explores the historic role played by visual images in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for civil rights in the US. The exhibit opens at UMBC in November 2012. The MHC grant-funded project brings approximately 12 senior adults from inter-racial and inter-faith backgrounds together for a series of 12 oral history and writing workshops. Students from UMBC will assist by recording the seniors’ stories and scanning seniors’ scrapbooks and pictures in preparation for a slide show. Seniors’ written accounts will result in a scripted performance that the seniors will present in five different venues including the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Enoch Pratt Library, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, UMBC. Interactive audience discussions, led a by a facilitator, follow each of these live performances.

Opportunity Grant Awards

Historic St. Mary’s City Foundation
Race and Representation
St. Mary’s County
Awarded Amount: $900

This project is a series of three programs offered by Historic St. Mary’s City (HSMC) in partnership with the Museum Studies Department of St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM): two public programs and a session on interpretive training for HSMC staff as well as SMCM students and faculty in the Museum Studies Department. The three related programs will be part of the Museum Studies Department year-long focus of “Controversial Topics in Museums.” The topics for the project are race and representation. The first public program will be a Diversity Panel, providing a forum for examining representation of race and minorities in cultural institutions. The second program, focusing on talking about race and slavery in museums, will be led by Nicole Moore, an interpreter of slavery and museum consultant. It will be open to HSMC staff as well as students and faculty in the Museum Studies Department. The third and final program will be a public lecture by Nicole Moore at HSMC. Moore will talk about her experience as an interpreter of slavery and offer her insights for further dialogue.

Hosanna School Museum
Lost and Found: The Forgotten Communities of APG – Journey Stories Youth Oral History Project Exhibit
Harford County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The Hosanna School Museum, in collaboration with Harford County Library, will present a little known story: the migration of families that dwelled in the area now occupied by Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG). These families were forced to make way for what some called a “government intrusion,” and others called a “patriotic sacrifice.” How they rebuilt their communities will be explored by participating teens and mentors and presented as part of an exhibition called “Lost and Found: The Forgotten Communities of APG, Journey Stories Youth Oral History Project.” After the oral histories are collected, the history will be incorporated into a traditional, interpretive exhibition that will utilize the latest technology in the form of audio stations and audio-visual flash or slideshow stations for one of the Harford County Library’s Journey Stories ancillary exhibits at the Hosanna School in Darlington, Maryland.

Academy Art Museum
Juneteenth Celebration
Talbot County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

The objective of this Juneteenth Celebration is to commemorate Emancipation Day, celebrate the significant contributions of African Americans in our country, and reflect on the common values and ideals that we share as a community. The full day of programs will have three parts. It begins with a screening of “Double Victory,” a new documentary by George Lucas that is a companion to the commercially released film, “Red Tails.” The centerpiece of the event will be a panel program on the Tuskegee Airmen, America’s first all-black aerial unit who served during World War II. The panel will include three Airmen who will discuss their personal experiences, offer a historical perspective of the unit, and provide context on the role of the Airmen in the Civil Rights movement. At the conclusion of the panel discussion there will be a series of educational activities to engage families and children on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen and more broadly to celebrate African-American history and culture.

Laurel Historical Society
Tasting Laurel: A Program Series
Prince George’s County
Awarded Amount: $500

The Laurel Historical Society is planning a series of free public programs bringing diverse communities together around a commonality: food. Programs will explore the history of local farming, current practices, how food affects culture, and conclude with a capstone community conversation regarding food. Funds requested are for two speakers. In September the Laurel Historical Society will tour Gorman Farm, the only example of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in the greater Laurel Area. In October John Peter Thompson will discuss the history of the National Agricultural Farm. This farm has had many firsts including being the first place in the world to study organic farming. November events include the Taste of Laurel and a community conversation program about how we value where we get our food.

Calvert Public Library
Scholars Talk about Lincoln: The Constitution & the Civil War
Calvert County
Awarded Amount: $500

While the NEH-sponsored exhibit Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War is on display during summer of 2012, the Calvert Library will bring top-quality Lincoln scholars and authors to teach their community and visitors. In addition to more than a dozen other programs, the library also plans to host Jim Getty for a living history performance of Lincoln, Frank Williams to talk about Justice Taney, Harold Holzer to discuss emancipation, Craig Symonds to tell about Lincoln learning as he leads, and Mary Ann Jung performing as Clara Barton. The goal of this project is to use the Humanities to engage people in conversations about decision-making during times of crisis and polarization.

Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art / Salisbury University
Maryland Master: Edwin Remsberg’s Portraits of Maryland Traditions
Wicomico County
Awarded Amount: $1,200

“Maryland Masters: Edwin Remsberg’s Portraits of Maryland Traditions” is a collection of images that reveal the unique flavor of Maryland and its distinctive community traditions. These traditions have been handed down from generation to generation, from master to apprentice. Maryland photographer Edwin Remsberg has captured these rituals in this series of portraits of men and women performing their individual practices, including some of the state’s oldest living traditions – like foxhunting, Smith Island Cakes, boatbuilding, Native American beadwork, and African-American gospel quartet singing – as well as some of its newest – like Colombian vallenato accordion and South Indian bharathanatyam dance.

University of Baltimore
Foundation West Meets East: Chinese Films and America
Baltimore City
Awarded Amount: $1,200

West Meets East is a two-day educational film forum. The forum features eight Chinese films showcasing the diversity of Chinese culture and filmmaking. There will be panelist-led discussions after each film, led by experts in Chinese film and culture, who can give great insights into the historical, cultural, and artistic significance of each film.