Three weeks ago, the Trump government ordered the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to cancel all the funding to the fifty State Humanities Councils, which until now played a vital role in stimulating cultural production and education across the land, including in the most remote and impoverished communities. This is only the latest chapter in the administration’s repeated attacks on the liberal and progressive cultural industries and media targeting agents of change who often promoted cultural inclusion. The already marginalized deep red rural America will be deeply affected. 

The arts and humanities organizations, led by visionary change agents, do much more than organizing cultural events: they play a crucial role in fostering social bonds, as well as community and local identity and pride. As such, they are vital to social resilience, especially in areas that lack in local resources, as a growing number of communities see essential organizations, such as banking institutions and grocery stores disappear, as indicated by the growing number of “banking deserts”  and “food deserts” across the south.  

These organizations are also vital to the economic revitalization and wellbeing of many rural communities which leverage them in their local economic development initiatives, ranging from tourism to automotive investment.  According to the Federation of State Humanities Councils, “humanities councils work, on average, with over 120 local partners each year and raise $2 in private investment for every $1 of federal support.” All in all, the creative sector generates over $150 billion in annual economic activity, according to Americans for the Arts (AFTA). 

AFTA maintains that arts funding from the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is “especially vital for rural and underserved communities” as well as “communities seeking economic revitalization.” For instance, the National Endowment for Arts collaborates with the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs in its Military Healing Arts Network that provides art therapies to enhance the quality of life for  military and veteran populations in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.  Epicenter, in Green River, Utah, is “rural and proud” and a “creative initiative that combines art, architecture and rural investment in order to build a more resilient, equitable and vibrant local community.” For its part, Humanities Nebraska “partners with hundreds of organizations all across our state every year. If NEH funding goes away, rural areas will suffer the most, as it is more difficult to raise private funds for activities in small communities. We will need to significantly cut back on many different programs that reach people of all ages and walks of life.” 

Other organizations and programs that will be affected range from Alabama’s “Road Scholars” program which “helps libraries, schools, historical societies, cultural organizations, and other groups bring scholar-storytellers to their communities”; Tennessee’s “Southern Festival of Books” that for several........

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