Alabama impact of NEH cuts

April 2, 2025 — Alabamians stand to lose local programs that provide important lifelong learning and civic engagement opportunities as a result of newly mandated federal cuts of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The federal Department of Government Efficiency this week ordered the NEH to make deep reductions in its staffing and budget, including to its grantmaking. These cuts would severely limit the ability of the Alabama Humanities Alliance, an NEH affiliate, to support statewide humanities efforts in communities large and small — efforts such as local history projects, storytelling festivals, community cultural celebrations, and humanities-focused podcasts and documentaries.

AHA is suspending its grantmaking in the state because of this financial uncertainty. The decision includes a pause in AHA’s monthly Mini Grants, Spring round of Major Grants, and its annual Media Grants, which were planned for this summer. AHA will also halt further bookings of its popular Road Scholars Speakers Bureau, which provides scholars and storytellers who give presentations at libraries, historical societies, and senior citizen centers across the state.

“The potential gutting of a federal agency might feel far away from many of us here in Alabama,” says Chuck Holmes, executive director of the Alabama Humanities Alliance. “But what’s at stake is very much of local concern — hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for local nonprofits to serve people in towns and cities across Alabama. These AHA grants are decided here in Alabama — not Washington, D.C. — and they support programming that enriches local communities.”

The impact of NEH cuts, if fully implemented, would be acutely felt in Alabama. For more than 50 years, AHA has served as a nonprofit and nonpartisan state affiliate of the NEH. During that time, Alabama Humanities has received congressionally appropriated federal funding to distribute nearly $13 million in support of humanities-rich programming in towns and cities across Alabama.

In 2024 alone, AHA distributed $380,000 to nonprofits statewide, supporting efforts like local storytelling festivals, oral history projects, conferences on AI and the humanities, art talks and book clubs, documentaries and podcasts, and public convenings that seek to bridge divides and find common ground. Grant recipients include community cornerstones such as local museums, historical societies, universities, libraries, arts and culture groups, literacy and educational organizations, municipalities and chambers of commerce.

Critically, there are no other statewide organizations that provide the type of funding AHA does. In AHA’s 2024 survey, 90% of all grant recipients stated that their public programming would not have been possible without their grant from the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

NEH funding also covers AHA’s operational costs and enables AHA to leverage state, corporate, foundation, and individual support. This non-federal funding supplements AHA’s other original programming, including:

• Alabama History Day, which engages Alabama middle school and high school students in creative and robust historical research.
• Smithsonian traveling exhibits that bring the Smithsonian to Alabama each year, primarily to small towns and rural areas of the state.
• Healing History, a new initiative that aims to bring Alabamians together through the exploration of our past and the sharing of our stories.
• Stony the Road, a weeklong field study that helps teachers bring Alabama’s civil rights history to life in their classrooms.
• Alabama Colloquium, an annual awards program that highlights the transformative power of the humanities in our state.
• Plus: teacher trainings, literary workshops, and AHA’s annual Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarships for the teaching of history and civics.

In total in 2024, AHA and its partners reached about 250,000 Alabamians with 1,790 events and public projects.

“Ultimately, what these proposed cuts threaten is our ability to inspire a lifelong love of learning here in Alabama,” Holmes says. “And when we lose that, we lose much more than funding. We lose our ability to understand each other. We miss opportunities to strengthen our communities, as well as our economy. And we fail to make Alabama an ever more vibrant place to live, to work, and to visit.”

For those who wish to support the Alabama Humanities Alliance, visit alabamahumanities.org/support.

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning and impactful storytelling that lifts up our state. We believe the humanities can bring our communities together and help us all see each other as fully human. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.