United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture

In September 2023, NEH issued $2.8 million to create a nationwide United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture program in all 56 U.S. states and jurisdictions that builds united fronts against hate at the community and national levels. NEH partnered with each of its state and jurisdictional affiliates to develop localized and place-based humanities programming that fostered cross-cultural understanding, empathy, and community resilience; educated the public on the history of domestic extremism and hate-based violence; promoted civic engagement, information literacy, and social cohesion; and deepened public understanding of community, state, and national history.

NEH-funded projects from 2023-24:  

• Alaska Humanities Forum: A workshop series for youth in Alaska to discuss, explore, and overcome systemic racism in rural and tribal communities; 

• Arizona Humanities: A community conversation series on what it means to be a civically engaged Arizonan and why diverse representation is critical for democracy;  

• California Humanities: Public programming exploring Black history, Latinx history, foodways, gentrification, and the history of white supremacy in Southern California; 

• Humanities Guåhan: A civic conversation program in Guam (Guåhan) facilitated by Chamoru and Micronesian cultural practitioners focused on migration, identity, discrimination- and hate-based violence, environmental sustainability, militarization, and colonization of Guåhan and Micronesia; 

• Mississippi Humanities Council: A discussion program for teens in connection with “Anne and Emmett,” a one-act play about Anne Frank and Emmett Till; 

• Ohio Humanities: Educational programming that explores the impact of hate groups on Ohio’s civic fabric, past and present;  

• Puerto Rico Humanities: Public programming that examines the history of prejudice, rights violations, and violence against LGBTQI+ communities in Puerto Rico and its diasporic enclaves in the United States;  

• South Carolina Humanities: Partnering with universities to lead panel discussions about the impact of hate on society at a community, state, and national level; and 

• Virginia Humanities: Production of a podcast series that tells the stories of immigrants to the United States, featuring conversations with scholars that explore their experiences and how immigrants contribute to the American story.  

In September 2024, NEH will host a national convening with all 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils focused on this initiative. In September 2025, NEH will offer an additional $2.8 million to NEH’s state and jurisdictional partners to expand this program to rural, urban, and Tribal communities.

In spring 2023, NEH published a special encouragement within all 40+ of its regular grant lines for projects that respond to the United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture initiative. Since the publication of this special encouragement, NEH has issued more than $10.5 million in support for research and development, K-12 educational workshops, public discussion series, documentary films, and museum exhibitions that counter hate-motivated violence by deepening public understanding of the histories of historically underrepresented and marginalized groups in the United States.  NEH will continue to issue this special encouragement through FY 2026.  

Recent NEH-funded United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture projects:  

• The production of “INSURRECTION 1898,” a 90-minute documentary film to be featured on PBS about the 1898 violent overthrow of a multi-racial government by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina ($600,000);    
• The development of a two-month graduate fellowship program focused on community archival practices pertaining to the South Asian American diaspora, with an emphasis on marginalized groups such as Muslim immigrants and members of historically discriminated castes ($350,000); 
• “Democracy and Education: A View from Detroit,” a two-week residential institute for middle and high school educators on the history and impact of northern civil rights activism and civic participation in Detroit, Michigan ($169,619);  
• An inventory of the intangible cultural resources of San Francisco’s Chinatown, whose residents experienced the negative impacts of widespread xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic ($115,521);  
• The development of Refugee and Immigrant Studies curricula at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia ($100,000);   
• Research and development of a scholarly monograph examining the cultural tensions surrounding LGBTQI+ communities in live streaming culture ($75,000);  
• Support for Amira Jarmakani, a scholar at San Diego State University, to research and write a book titled “Weapons of Mass Dissemination: Apprehending Digital Anti-Muslim Racism,” which will examine how social media can perpetuate gendered, anti-Muslim racism and pose a dangerous threat to the United States ($60,000); and  
• Support for David Greenberg, a scholar at Rutgers University, to research and write “John Lewis (1940-2020: A Life in Politics,” the first full-fledged biography of the civil rights leader and U.S. Congressman ($60,000).  

In the first ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism (May 2023), NEH outlined plans to expand the agency’s investment in K-12 education on Jewish history as well as research, teaching, and convening opportunities for humanities scholars and institutions to study the origins, history, and effects of antisemitism in the United States.  NEH is funding several projects in response to the May 2023 strategy:

• Partnerships focused on K-12 curriculum development with National History Day and the U.S. National Holocaust Memorial Museum that promote better understanding among young people of antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish history
• Research and development for a book titled “Antisemitism, An American Tradition,” which traces the history of antisemitism in the United States from 1657 to the present
• Production of a feature-length documentary for PBS American Masters on the life and works of author, activist, educator, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel. 

As of March 2024, NEH is supporting the White House on the development of the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia.

NEH regularly offers emergency assistance to communities in the wake of incidents of hate-motivated violence. 

One recent example is an NEH award to Humanities Texas—in partnership with Baylor University and a local library—in fall 2022 to establish an archive in Uvalde, Texas, to preserve community and national responses to the Robb Elementary School massacre that occurred on May 24, 2022.