Trump’s cultural overhaul throttles local arts, humanities programs nationwide
By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn and Sunlen Serfaty, CNN
(CNN) — For 60 years, Boston’s Museum of African American History has transported people to the past, letting visitors to a 200-year-old meeting house see where abolitionists like Frederick Douglass spoke and walk through halls where young Black soldiers once rallied to fight in the Civil War.
But recently, the museum’s history programs for schoolchildren were put at risk after the Trump administration canceled its federal grant, saying in a letter that the funding “no longer serves the interest of the United States.”
“I will forever remember that line,” the museum’s director, Dr. Noelle Trent, told CNN.
“We were very much embedded into key moments of this country’s history. How is that not of interest to the United States and the American people?”
The museum had won a $500,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, one of the agencies at the center of President Donald Trump’s cultural overhaul, to build its capacity to support school trips and educational programs. Now, the museum is planning for a future without the funds, Trent said.
In Washington, Trump has forged ahead with efforts to exert control over which cultural pursuits the government backs, from taking the reins of the Kennedy Center to targeting “improper ideology” at the Smithsonian.
But his administration’s push to align federal support with his cultural agenda – and combat what he sees as “woke” ideology and “anti-American propaganda“– has extended beyond the nation’s capital.
It has left museums like the Museum of African American History in Boston as well as libraries, archival projects, arts programs, and film festivals reeling after the IMLS and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities canceled tens of millions of dollars in federal grants.
Redirecting funding
Trump, who has promised to scale back the size of the federal government, has asked Congress to eliminate the agencies. If Congress grants his request, it will amount to an unprecedented gutting of federal support for arts and humanities.
The National Endowment for the Arts helps fund everything from free music and theater programs to film festivals and literary magazines. The National Endowment for the Humanities supports research, historic sites, book programs, and museum exhibits.
And the IMLS, which Trump deemed “unnecessary” bureaucracy in March and ordered “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” pays for job training programs, interlibrary loans, and free e-book and audiobook services for libraries in rural areas.
Several lawsuits across the country are challenging how the Trump administration is gutting or overhauling the grant programs at IMLS, NEA and NEH. The challengers have prevailed in some of the cases, but the administration is seeking to reverse the rulings against it.
The African American history museum in Boston received a letter from IMLS on Wednesday indicating that the agency will adhere to a court order earlier this month from a federal judge in Rhode Island requiring it to reinstate grants. However, the reinstatement of the grant is contingent on an appeal, which is pending, the letter said.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has touted some of the cuts on social media, declaring that NEH grants will be “merit-based and awarded to non-DEI, pro-America causes” going forward. A lawsuit filed by the American Historical Association and other groups alleges that two DOGE employees “demanded lists of open NEH grants and then indiscriminately terminated the vast majority of the grants.”
Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have long argued that arts and humanities programs shouldn’t receive taxpayer money because they have enough financial support from private sources.
The Trump administration has already started to redirect federal funding towards cultural initiatives the president backs.
A portion of canceled NEH funds will help pay for The National Garden of Heroes, a sculpture garden Trump first floated in 2020. Slated to be completed in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary next year, it will feature “250 great individuals from America’s past,” according to a release.
“We’re going to be honoring our heroes, honoring the greatest people from our country. We’re not going to be tearing down. We’re going to be building up,” Trump said in February.
The IMLS, NEA and NEH did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Programming for kids at risk
As the Trump administration shifts its priorities, arts advocates say programming for children is at risk.
In Nebraska, String Sprouts, a “no-to-low-cost” music education program hosted by the Omaha Conservatory of Music, had received an NEA grant for a decade. Now, the group may be forced to scale back the number of classes it offers, according to Neidy Hess, the conservatory communication’s manager.
In New York, Opera on Tap’s Playground Opera program, which immerses students in low-income communities in production and performance, will also have to be dialed back without federal support, co-founder and general director Anne Hiatt told CNN.
Meanwhile, the South Dakota Humanities Council lost $950,000, or 73% of its total budget. While it will be able to continue some programming, it may have to stop its Young Reader Program, which provides free books to third-graders, said the council’s executive director, Christina Oey.
Oey’s group is one of the 56 councils across the country that saw their general operating and support grants slashed in April. She said the National Garden of Heroes project won’t have the same kind of reach as the programs and events councils put on, particularly in rural communities.
“Yes, a monument is educational. It can provide learning opportunities, but you have to travel to that. I mean, I can attest to that in South Dakota: Mount Rushmore is five and a half hours away from me, right?” she said. “If you fund the humanities, you also fund programming that can change, that can travel, that can be in your community.”
While South Dakota Humanities Council has received some emergency funding from the Mellon Foundation, a private foundation for the arts and humanities, some councils that are more reliant on federal funds say they could close if Congress grants Trump’s proposal to gut the NEH.
National History Day, a nonprofit that hosts a nationwide competition for students in grades 6-12 to present their own historical research projects, may not have as many participants without federal support, executive director Cathy Gorn said.
“Kids, when they study history effectively, they learn empathy, and we really need a whole lot more of that in this country, in this world,” Gorn said. “And so, losing this opportunity is a real crisis for American education.
‘Tough subjects are the reason why we’re here’
For Trent, the museum director in Boston, the impact of the Trump administration is more than federal funding cuts. She said corporate support started drying up after the president took office, a trend she blames partly on his efforts to quash diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
When asked why taxpayer dollars should go to museums like the one she leads, Trent said they make communities unique and leave a positive impact on visitors.
“There are places all across this great country, that have really great programs, that have qualitatively changed to peoples lives,” she explained.
On a recent trip to the museum, seventh grader Excel Alabi found herself moved by the stories about young people around her age fighting to end slavery in the Civil War.
“They were fighting for us. I think that’s really beautiful,” she told CNN. “When I was starting school, it was just like ‘People are going to war to fight for rights.’ I didn’t know that it was teenagers trying to fight for their families too.”
“It’s important for kids to learn history because it’s just such a big impact on what we’ve been through,” she added. “I think we should face those tough subjects because those tough subjects are the reason why we’re here.”
CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Emily Condon contributed to this report.
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