Last Friday, we held our annual Public Humanities Awards Gala at the Old Capitol Museum. Each year, I try to give a short "State of the Council" address before the award presentations. This year, I felt I needed to respond to recent reports about plans to defund the National Endowments for the Humanities and Arts. While I think such reports are overblown, NEH enjoys strong support from members of both parties on Capitol Hill, they remind us of the need to make the case for the value and importance of the humanities to our state.

I see this value every day. A few weeks ago in Tupelo, a large diverse crowd gathered at the Link Center to have an honest dialogue about racial issues in their community. This ongoing series is funded by the Mississippi Humanities Council from a special grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support public programs that explore the legacy of racism in Mississippi. Back in the fall, as part of our Ideas on Tap series, the Council hosted a civil public forum in Jackson about our state flag, which featured a panel and an audience that represented different perspectives on the controversial issue. People listened respectfully to each other, and hopefully, gained a greater sense of understanding of those who hold opposing views.

Working with our partners at Millsaps and Mississippi College, we helped sponsor an incredible summer humanities course at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for women that explored the history of southern women. I was fortunate enough to attend the graduation ceremony at the prison, an experience I will never forget. The students' thirst for learning, to understand the context of their own lives, and their commitment to completing the serious demands of the course without access to computers, a proper library, air conditioning, and often even light, was inspiring. The students' passion for education gets to the very heart of the importance and purpose of the humanities.

I have seen a similar love of learning in the young children we serve through our family reading programs. Up in Horn Lake, our partners at the local library fill the building once a week for our bilingual Luciernagas reading program, which has had a tremendous impact on integrating the town's growing Hispanic population into the community. In Perry County, where the public libraries have closed due to budget cuts, our Prime Time Family Reading program is one of the only options for school-aged children to experience reading programs outside of school. With Prime Time, children across the state learn to enjoy reading and discussing the important themes and lessons in the best children's literature.

If you are reading this, there's a good chance I don't have to make the case to you for why the humanities are important. But, together, we need to be ready to make that case to our fellow Mississippians; to explain the value of life-long learning, the benefit of grappling and coming to terms with our state's difficult history, and the importance of a small humanities council that serves as a catalyst for these programs all around the state.

I could go on and on, but you can see the impact of the work we do in the remainder of this newsletter. If you are reading this, there's a good chance I don't have to make the case to you for why the humanities are important. But, together, we need to be ready to make that case to our fellow Mississippians; to explain the value of life-long learning, the benefit of grappling and coming to terms with our state's difficult history, and the importance of a small humanities council that serves as a catalyst for these programs all around the state. Dr. Peggy Prenshaw, whom we honored at the gala with our Cora Norman Award for her long career as a scholar and leader in the public humanities, summed up the importance of the humanities in her moving address, concluding that they "help make our society, our country, vibrant and inclusive and just." I couldn't have put it better myself.