Letter from the Executive Director The year 2020 brought us COVID-19 and around Confederate monuments and the pandemic. communities means there are more questions we Gismondi, Diana Williams, and Charlie Shelton- a nationwide racial reckoning we haven’t seen the And despite the challenges of working remotely, our must ask, issues we must examine, and stories we Ormond. We also said farewell to Lilia Fuquen, likes of since the civil rights movement of the 1960s. With Good Reason staff continued producing weekly must amplify. These include the disproportionate who led the Food & Community project for the last These events exposed divisions and inequities we radio shows addressing vital questions raised by harm the coronavirus has had on people of color, the two years. In August, we gathered in a virtual send- long knew were there. But our resilience in the antiracist demonstrations, the ways COVID-19 has gender inequality of caregiving labor and its impact off to celebrate Jon Lohman, our state folklorist face of the coronavirus and the more deep-seated affected schools, and how to combat burnout among on women, what it means to memorialize, and the who served as the director of the Virginia Folklife virus of racism have also revealed and underscored doctors and nurses caring for victims of the virus. importance of Indigenous voices as we reckon with Program for nineteen years. His work in building something that gives me a reason to hope: the the history of racism in the United States. Such that program, supporting artists and artisans, importance of community. With the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, explorations of the human experience are at the and documenting and preserving folk traditions, is and Economic Security (CARES) Act by Congress, heart of our work, and the work we support. without comparison. As the pandemic forced us to cancel public programs we received just over $600,000 from the National in the interest of safety, it was our commitment to Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that we were To do this work more effectively, in 2021 we will As ever, our vibrant and creative work depends on community and a desire to help us all feel less alone able to distribute as emergency operating grants to be moving to a new office closer to downtown state and federal funding, corporate and foundation that led us to adapt our programs to virtual platforms. 112 museums, historical societies, and other cultural Charlottesville. For the first time in decades—once gifts, and you. In this issue of Views I hope you see that Our Virginia Festival of the Book launched Shelf nonprofit organizations in Virginia to support the it is safe for us to be together—our staff will be in the humanities, especially in times of crisis, are not a Life, a series of virtual conversations with authors. work they’re doing in your communities. The CARES one building and on one floor. This new office space luxury good, but are critical in connecting us, building Scholars in our Fellowship program engaged you in Act funds, combined with our regular spring and fall and public humanities center will allow us to be heathy communities, and defining what matters. discussions and answered your questions about their grant awards, have played a vital role in restoring more collaborative, more accessible, and better research through online webinars. And our Virginia and preserving Virginia’s cultural economy and in able to engage our local and statewide partners. With gratitude, Folklife Program supported artists by connecting supporting the health of communities across the them with students, even when those students were commonwealth. This year has not been without its farewells. In Encyclopedia Virginia July, BackStory produced its last podcast and we many miles away. All the while, Matthew Gibson continued to provide context and history to the debates The impact of this moment on individuals and said goodbye to full-time staff members Melissa Executive Director Cover: Luz Lopez makes traditional corn tortillas during a cooking demonstration at the 2016 Richmond Folk Festival. Lopez is one of the artists who offered online lessons in Virginia Humanities' TRAIN initiative, which was one of the ways we responded to COVID-19. To learn more, see "Luz Lopez and TRAIN" inside. Photo by Pat Jarrett, Virginia Humanities. PIVOT POINT: VIRGINIA HUMANITIES RESPONDS TO COVID-19 From CARES Act funding to new virtual programming, Virginia Humanities helps us all stay connected and engaged 3 during a time of crisis. Teaching History 23 The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center equips educators with powerful community knowledge and the tools to teach it. 3 Virgina Humanities 21 Luz Lopez and TRAIN — 34 The Future of Backstory Responds to Covid-19 Impact Story 35 Shifting the Landscape: 7 CARES Act Grantee 23 Teaching History The Virginia African Arcadia Food Inc. — American Cultural Impact Story 27 A New Home for Resources Task Force Virginia Humanities 9 Echoes of 39 Making the Invisible Visible Pandemics Past ECHOES OF 29 Virginia Folklife Master Artist: Clyde Jenkins 45 Grants 15 Making the Connection: Photo Essay PANDEMICS PAST Jon Lohman’s Legacy Annual Report to the Virginia Folklife 49 9 Explore the history of the 1918-1919 Program influenza pandemic in Virginia. Making MAKING THE the Invisible CONNECTION: 15 39 Visible We look back at Jon Lohman's nineteen years directing the Veronica Jackson explains how Virginia Folklife Program. themes of race, family, and feminism inform her work. PIVOT POINT: VIRGINIA HUMANITIES RESPONDS TO COVID-19 By Erin O’Hare What if history happens and no one is there to record In order to preserve cultural and historical repositories it? That’s what the Virginia Museum of History in the face of the economic disruption caused by the and Culture (VMHC) was facing as the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Endowment for the Humanities pandemic decimated its operating revenue just (NEH) earmarked $30 million in grant money from the as the pandemic and the ongoing protests against CARES Act, which was passed by Congress in March police brutality and racial injustice unfolded on its 2020. The NEH then distributed the funds through doorstep in Richmond. the fifty-six state and territorial humanities councils, including Virginia Humanities, which received a little But a $10,000 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic more than $600,000 between April and July. Security (CARES) Act grant, in combination with other funding, allowed the museum to retain its Realizing the seriousness of the situation facing staff and continue its mission of telling “the evolving museums, libraries, historical societies, and other story of the commonwealth,” says VMHC president cultural nonprofit organizations across the state, and CEO Jamie Bosket. which saw their revenue dry up as their doors closed under stay-at-home orders, Virginia Humanities Museum archivists collected journals describing the created a needs survey to gauge the extent of the experience of living through the historic pandemic, crisis in the humanities community and worked as well as artifacts “that represent the peaceful and to distribute the funds as quickly as possible. passionate protests and also some of the devastation More than 150 organizations replied to the survey, and heartache that comes with this sort of social indicating that “the impact was going to be pretty unrest within a community,” says Bosket. “When the severe on all organizations,” says Sue Perdue, flow of life gets disrupted is a time when culture and Virginia Humanities’ chief information officer and a community are more important than ever.” member of the grant distribution committee. Left: As part of the All In Together public art project, the steps of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond were decorated with a message to the community, including the phrase: "Together, with an understanding of history, we can do more | THE SAVING GRACE OF SPRING ROLLS to stop a four-century cycle of injustice." Photo courtesy of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture In mid-May, Virginia Humanities dispersed $599,500 conversation, many of whom were writers originally in grants to 110 nonprofit cultural organizations scheduled to appear at the festival. throughout the state ($1,500 was used to administer the grants). An additional $8,000 was awarded to Gabriel Bump was touring in support of his debut two organizations in July. Grant amounts ranged novel, Everywhere You Don’t Belong, when the from $1,000 to $10,000 and were scaled to an pandemic shut things down. More than 300 people organization’s operating budget. Unlike most NEH- were in attendance at his Shelf Life session as funded grants, the recipients didn’t have to come up he discussed his book, a comic coming-of-age with a special project or deliverable, says Perdue; story that deals heavily with race in America, on they just had to demonstrate that they needed the May 26, the day after George Floyd was killed by money to sustain operations. police in Minneapolis, spurring weeks of protests about racial injustices. Bump was heartened that Distributing the CARES Act funding to struggling he could continue to connect with readers and that cultural organizations in record time wasn’t the books remain more relevant than ever. “Especially only pivot Virginia Humanities had to make at the now, people need to escape, and they’ll do it by a start of the coronavirus pandemic. In mid-March, book,” he says. the Virginia Festival of the Book staff faced an agonizing decision: The infection rate in Virginia, as NoNieqa Ramos, a picture book author and young in much of the mid-Atlantic region, was climbing. adult novelist who participated in Shelf Life, says There were whispers of potential closures, but in that while nothing can replicate the experience of an much of the state it was still business as usual.