Funded Projects in Fiscal Year 2022

Arkansas

 

Arkansas Country Blues and String Band Festival

The Arkansas Country Blues and String Band Festival will bring world-class tradition bearers of hill country, delta blues, and string band traditions together at Meadowcreek, Inc. in Fox, Arkansas, for a three-day festival presenting and interpreting these related musical traditions for diverse audiences, building bridges of cultural understanding.

Funding: $24,887.00

Organization: Meadowcreek, Inc.
 

Arkansas Peace Week 7th Street Murals

Little Rock's 7th Street Murals are a focal point of the social justice movement in Arkansas. Our project will interpret, promote, protect and expand the 7th Street Murals while teaching associated lessons of peace and justice to the community.

Funding: $6,175.00

Organization: Arkansas Coalition for Peace and Justice
 

Ben Pearson Exhibit

Develop a permanent exhibit about Ben Pearson, a Pine Bluff native, who was known world wide for being the first person/company to start mass producing bows and archery equipment and was one of the first people inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame.

Funding: $11,500.00

Organization: Arkansas Game and Fish Commission/Delta Rivers Nature Center
 

Full STEAM Ahead

Klipsch Heritage Museum Association (KHMA) is a four-facility association. All locations follow the same mission, which is to promote STEAM education in a variety of ways. This project focuses on the arts in that an outdoor stage will provide listeners with a full, audio experience utilizing Klipsch speakers.

Funding: $17,775.00

Organization: Klipsch Heritage Museum Association
 

Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Community with Historic Architecture

Arkansas and Mississippi Delta repurposed structures: Lakeport Plantation, Japanese American Internment Museum, Winterville Mounds, etc. are historic. Their architecture tells stories of the communities and its residents. We will develop placed-based education experiences for 8th and 9th graders and residents to connect with the adaptive architecture in their communities.

Funding: $21,000.00

Organization: Alex Foundation
 

Illinois

 

Jonesboro IL Wall Mural

Looking for Lincoln will create a mural in collaboration with the Jonesboro Looking for Lincoln working group at a high-volume intersection to generate awareness and increase visitation to the Lincoln-Douglas debate site in Jonesboro, Illinois. The project also includes the replacement of an interpretive panel connected to the Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Funding: $10,857.00

Organization: Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition
 

Sesser Opera House

The Sesser Opera House was once a bustling cultural center that played host to decades worth of entertainment. This included silent movies and early feature films. Our project goal is to install a new projection system and silver screen so that it may, once again, be used as a cinema.

Funding: $15,400.00

Organization: The City of Sesser, IL
 

Kentucky

 

Young Historians Project

This project will train 75 seventh grade students in historical research, sourcing, writing, and public speaking. By judging and rewarding them with awards and a presentation and awards night, we hope to acquaint more students and their families with our historical society and our local history.

Funding: $1,193.00

Organization: Hickman County Historical Society
 

Louisiana

 

A Collaborative Model for Sharing Research on Ancestral African American Cemeteries in the Lower Mississippi Valley

This project seeks to create a template for collaborative outreach materials dedicated to the preservation of African American cemetery sites located in the river parishes of Louisiana, through the production of a booklet dedicated to the history of cemeteries on the site of St. Rosalie Plantation, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Funding: $15,900.00

Organization: Midlo Center For New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans
 

Create a Traveling Exhibit about the Claiborne-Polk Military Railroad

The Claiborne-Polk Military Railroad was a direct outgrowth of the May 1940 Louisiana Military Maneuvers when 70,000 U.S. Army troops held exercises in rural western Louisiana. A traveling exhibit will bring this nearly-forgotten piece of Louisiana's history and U.S. military history to a new audience.

Funding: $3,500.00

Organization: USS KIDD Veterans Museum
 

Haney's Big House Exhibit

Haney's Big House, a popular juke joint on the chitlin' circuit during its time. Iconic piano players had a huge influence on the style of Jerry Lee Lewis. Musical scholars will be videoed as part of an exhibit in the "blues" corner. Legends will be interviewed for museum.

Funding: $7,423.00

Organization: Friends of Delta Music Museum Foundation
 

New Orleans and the Blues

Provide an educational and entertaining experience featuring the musical blues traditions of the Mississippi Delta as part of our 2023 Festival. Blues musicians and music scholars will present a program of music and discussion focused on increasing attendees' knowledge of and appreciation for Mississippi Delta Blues.

Funding: $7,000.00

Organization: Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival
 

Nicey Nice Performance and Presentation Series

Nicey Nice Cultural Series is a series of on-site and off-site programs and projects that celebrate African retentive cultural expressions. The series will provide neighborhood residents, children, and the general public with culturally relevant interactive experiences.

Funding: $25,000.00

Organization: Guardians Institute
 

Ouachita Life: Delta Music Heritage Series

The Delta Music Heritage Concert Series is a 4 concert series as a part of Ouachita Live, a free outdoor concert series in downtown West Monroe, LA, that will emphasize and promote our Regional Music Heritage with emphasis on Delta Blues.

Funding: $10,320.00

Organization: Downtown West Monroe Revitalization Group
 

School Sagas: Could Little Rock Central Happen Here?

The School Sagas project will create a traveling exhibit that contrasts interviews of Black students who desegregated Louisiana schools with quotes from Little Rock Central High School alumni in Arkansas. The project will increase audience knowledge of the desegregation movement and tourist interest in culturally relevant school sites.

Funding: $25,000.00

Organization: HARK
 

Telling a Better Story: Indigenous Interpretation

This project will serve to assist Vermilionville to fullfill its mission, which includes representing the history and culture of the Native American peoples on whose unceded land our museum now sits.

Funding: $14,631.00

Organization: Vermilionville Living History Museum
 

Mississippi

 

Hiram Revels Plaza: Design & Construction Services

Engineering and landscape design services to create Revels Plaza, a public space honoring Senator Hiram Revels, the first African American in the U.S. Congress. Situated at the St. Catherine Street gateway to Downtown Natchez, the plaza is adjacent to Zion Chapel, where Revels was pastor in 1865.

Funding: $25,000.00

Organization: City of Natchez
 

Indianola Freedom House Stabilization

The Mississippi Heritage Trust, in partnership with Dr. Felicia King, will complete the stabilization of the Indianola Freedom House.

Funding: $24,500.00

Organization: Mississippi Heritage Trust
 

Resetting the Table: The History of Foodways in Vicksburg

This project creates an interactive History of Foodways in Vicksburg exhibit at the Catfish Row Museum, showcasing how food and culture are profoundly intertwined in the Mississippi Delta. Our Demonstration Kitchen will promote culinary and cultural heritage tourism, sharing Vicksburg's unique food heritage while fostering economic growth in the region.

Funding: $25,000.00

Organization: Shape Up Mississippi
 

Using Local Voices to Teach the Voting Rights Story in Mississippi

This project is a one-day teacher workshop which will focus on effective ways to use oral history to teach a more complete narrative and interpretation of African American voting rights in 1960s Mississippi.

Funding: $2,509.00

Organization: Copiah-Lincoln Community College Foundation
 

Missouri

 

The History of the Mining Industry in the Lower Mississippi Delta as Illustrated in the Ste. Genevieve, Missouri Region

Age-appropriate online learning materials covering mining history in our region will be developed and taught in schools/colleges then expanded upon and reinforced by a visit to the Museum with a video presentation. The presentation will also benefit visitors of all ages to the Museum.

Funding: $11,795.00

Organization: Sainte Genevieve Museum Learning Center
 

Tennessee

 

No Tears Project - Memphis

No Tears Project (NTP) is an outreach program that uses music and conversation to engage communities in learning about civil rights heritage. Over a four-day residency, NTP strives to create recognition as a precursor to reconciliation and to inspire people to visit and preserve civil rights sites and stories.

Funding: $25,000.00

Organization: Oxford American Literary Project
 

The Lynching of Pat Crump

In June 1911, Pat Crump, a black man, was lynched by a mob in south Memphis for an alleged attack on a white woman. The Lynching Sites Project will place a historical marker near the site of the lynching to bring public awareness to racial terror lynchings in Shelby County.

Funding: $3,801.00

Organization: Lynching Sites Project of Memphis

Last updated: August 8, 2022

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