The list below is updated following each grant cycle:
Mini Grant Awards (November 2020)
Mini Grant Awards (February 2020)
Major Grant Awards (April 2021)
Mini Grant Awards (May 2021)
Mini Grant Awards (August 2021)
Please check back regularly for the most current details of the public history, cultural heritage, civic education, and community engagement projects happening throughout the state.
Major Grant Awards (April 2021)
The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities is pleased to announce major grant awards to 15 public projects and documentary films that showcase the power of the humanities to connect communities and strengthen civil society.
Video messages from Senator Jack Reed, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Congressman David Cicilline, and Congressman James Langevin speak to the role of the humanities to bring people together, especially in times of crisis, and congratulate this year’s grant recipients. In 2020, their continued support and leadership in Congress helped to bring $840,000 to Rhode Island in federal relief funds from the National Endowments for the Humanities and Arts. Additional relief funding for humanities and arts is expected through the American Rescue Plan, and details about those opportunities will be available later in May.
“This past year has presented so many obstacles to humanities organizations, to scholars, and to artists. Nevertheless, this community has adapted to the pandemic and risen to the challenge to reach people through the humanities, to contend with the past and to be part of a movement for justice. The humanities are showing the way to a renewed civil society. This year’s major project grants promise to do this in bold and creative ways,” said Elizabeth Francis, Executive Director.
Read on for a full list of this year’s major grant projects along with short video clips.
Public Project Grants: In support of organizations that enrich and enliven the life of our state through public humanities programs which include civic engagement and education components to cultivate the civic leaders of future generations.
Generation Citizen / Generation Citizen DEI Curricular Initiative, $11,707.00
Supports the evaluation, redesign, and implementation of Generation Citizen’s Action Civics curriculum to center diversity, equity, and inclusion through a culturally responsive, anti-racist, and strength-based lens.
Little Compton Historical Society / Everyone Was A Farmer: Permanent Exhibition, $12,000.00
Supports the development and implementation of a new permanent exhibition, Everyone Was a Farmer, in the historical society’s dairy barn exhibition space. The exhibition will include four centuries of agricultural histories, including stories of enslaved farmers of African descent, Indigenous farmers, and present-day local farmers, and will have related programming and virtual components.
Manton Avenue Project / MAP Adapts!: Plays by Young People to Create Connection and (Re)Imagine Past, Present, and Future, $12,000.00
Supports a series of playwriting programs for 3rd-to-8th graders. Each program will include playwriting instruction and a humanities-focused adaptation project that will ask participants to reimagine stories from visual art, literature, and history into performance texts and mini exhibitions.
newportFILM / newportFILM Virtual, $11,997.50
Supports the implementation and execution of the newportFILM Virtual program. The program includes free streaming of newportFILM’s documentary selections, post-film online Q&As with filmmakers and scholars, and blog posts by a humanities scholar.
Operation Stand Down Rhode Island / Providence Clemente Veterans Initiative, $12,000.00
Supports two faculty members’ participation in as well as printing expenses for the Providence Clemente Veterans Initiative 2021-22 program. The PCVI provides free humanities courses to all RI veterans that can be taken for college credit.
South County Museum / Ohh!: Oral History Hub Pilot, $5,000.00
A pilot oral history collection project to document the experiences of 10 members of the Point Judith commercial fishing community. As part of the project, the project team will train community oral history interviewers, find a digital repository for interviews, offer a lecture, produce an article, and incorporate the collected oral histories into an exhibition on Point Judith fishermen.
Teatro ECAS / ECAS en Casa, $7,400.00
Supports ECAS en Casa, a virtual program in which Teatro ECAS Executive Director Francis Parra interviews artists and scholars from across the Spanish-speaking world about humanities topics connected to the theater. Programs will be in Spanish with English-language subtitles.
United Theatre / The United Theatre Podcast Education Program, $10,000.00
A podcast education program for both youth and adults in partnership with the Public’s Radio. Participant podcasts will be distributed on a newly created United Theatre Podcast Network.
What Cheer Writers Club / Dear Rhode Island, $9,099.00
A two-month-long letter-writing exchange connecting pairs of Rhode Islanders, with a particular focus on populations experiencing increased social isolation due to the pandemic. The project will distribute letters from humanities scholars to all participants with each letter-writing round, and will also include a Letter Writing Bee event and a closing panel with the scholars.
The Womxn Project Education Fund / The Civics Project, $10,800.00
Supports the creation and distribution of a video series and social media campaign on the rules, norms, and systems of Rhode Island’s civic landscape. The target audience for the series and campaign is marginalized communities in Rhode Island, with the goal of increased civic and democratic participation in these communities.
Documentary Film Grants: In support of documentary films that preserve Rhode Island’s stories and bring its history to life.
Blackstone Valley Tourism Council / Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village, $12,000.00
Post-production of Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village, an eight-part documentary on the history and legacy of Slatersville that is contracted to premiere on Rhode Island PBS in 2022.
Frequency Writers / How We Remember, $10,475.00
Production and post-production of a documentary investigating the historical and cultural impact of the digitization of media, and how that affects personal memory and history as well as archival documentation in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island Black Heritage Society / Legacies of Slavery and Freedom: A Family Journey through the Atlantic World, $11,700.00
Production of a documentary that traces the history and legacies of slavery, freedom, and reparations through one enslaved African boy’s journey from Ghana to Jamaica to Rhode Island.
Rhode Island Latino Arts / Nuestras Raíces/Aquí Me Quedo, $5,000.00
Supports the research, planning and development phase of Nuestras Raíces/Aquí Me Quedo, a one-hour documentary about the Latino community on Providence’s Broad Street, and more generally, in Rhode Island. During the project timeline, the team will develop a Latinx film team; create a storyboard, timeline, and script for the documentary; and produce and screen a 3-5 minute trailer during Hispanic Heritage Month.
The Sanctuary Theatre, Inc. / Project Saudade, $10,500.00
Production and post-production of an animated short exploring the psychic and social toll of contemporary pandemic-era disconnectedness, and the paradoxes of living in the most networked time.
MINI GRANT AWARDS (November 2020)
Public Project Grants: In support of organizations that enrich and enliven the life of our state through public humanities programs which include civic engagement and education components to cultivate the civic leaders of future generations.
Gallery Night Providence, $2,000 to Archiving Gallery Night Providence
Supports the hiring of a professional archivist to process, catalogue, and contribute oral histories to Gallery Night’s organizational archive. Audiences will connect with these activities through website content and virtual public programs.
Christopher Johnson / The Wilbury Theatre Group, $2,000 to Invoice for Emotional Labor
Supports Invoice for Emotional Labor, a new, educational multimedia performance workshop. Written by Christopher Johnson, Invoice for Emotional Labor explores contemporary terms and conversations around race and racism through performance and lecture, and concludes with audience talk-backs and discussions.
Close Up Foundation, $2,000 to Inspiring Civic Action Programming for Rhode Island Youth
Supports 30 low-income, underrepresented Rhode Island high students’ participation in Close Up’s national Inspiring Civic Action: Justice and Equity virtual education program.
Sophia Richter / University of Rhode Island, $2,000 to South County Voices in COVID: An Oral History Project
Supports the collection of oral history interviews from South County residents about their pandemic experiences. These interviews will ultimately be contributed to the online RI COVID-19 Archive helmed by the Providence Public Library and Rhode Island Historical Society.
Research Grants to Individuals: In support of independent research that captures and illuminates Rhode Island’s stories.
Selena Marshall, $1,500 to Black Rep
Supports research for a documentary on the Black Repertory Theater of Providence, or Black Rep (1996-2009).
MINI GRANT AWARDS (February 2021)
Public Project Grants: In support of organizations that enrich and enliven the life of our state through public humanities programs which include civic engagement and education components to cultivate the civic leaders of future generations.
Gather Together United As 1 / Popular Praxis, $2,000 to Voice to Empower: VOTE
Supports four 90-minute virtual town halls among people experiencing homelessness, advocates for those experiencing homelessness, and policy makers to discuss barriers to voting and civic participation among unsheltered individuals, and potential solutions.
Riverzedge Arts, $2,000 to The Social Flatlands Project
Supports 20 youth from marginalized groups partnering with local historians, scholars, and civic experts to research the history of a former mill village in Woonsocket. Participants in the program will create a visual overlay and timeline of the area, produce an archive from their research findings, and plan possible future interventions into the landscape.
Documentary Film Grants: In support of documentary films that preserve Rhode Island’s stories and bring its history to life.
Tom Garber / Center for Independent Documentary, $2,000 to Rum: America’s Spirit for Liberty
Supports the research and development phase of a 90-minute documentary film exploring rum’s role in the Rhode Island-based transatlantic slave trade.
Research Grants to Individuals: In support of independent research that captures and illuminates Rhode Island’s stories.
Mev Miller, $2,000 to Wanderground: Archiving Lesbian Legacies, Words, Creativity in Rhode Island
Supports research into Rhode Island Lesbians’ relationships with and contributions to the late-twentieth-century Women in Print Movement, and their existing personal collections related to the Movement. The research will primarily take the form of surveys and interviews as well as visits to existing Lesbian archives, and will culminate in a presentation of findings via a website/blog, physical display, and presentation event.
Check back in June when Mini Grants from the FY21 May award cycle are announced.
Total of $545,000 awarded through 94 grants in FY2020
In FY2020, the Council awarded 94 grants in support of public history, cultural heritage, civic education, and community engagement. Throughout the year, grantees adapted their projects to keep their communities safe, reflecting the creativity and resilience of the humanities sector. For a full listing of grants awarded from November 2019 – October 2020, click here or on the image below to view the Council’s 2020 Annual Report .
