The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Grant Program

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Featured Grants

Two VFH Funded Films Featured in Virginia Film Festival

Of the more than 75 films screened at the 2011 Virginia Film Festival, two are Virginia Foundation for the Humanities-sponsored documentaries that tell important stories for Virginia and the nation.

The Loving Story

Using found footage from the 1960s and contemporary interviews, this film tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving: an interracial couple who were married at a time when interracial marriage was illegal in 16 states.

Arrested and forced to leave Virginia in 1958 for the felony of being married, the Lovings decided to fight back. This film follows the couple and their young lawyers as they prepare for the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case that would lead to the legalization of interracial marriage in all states.

The Reconstruction of Asa Carter

Forrest Carter, best-selling author of The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Education of Little Tree, was an exalted Cherokee hero of New Age wisdom. As a leader in the Native American cultural revival of the 1970s, Forrest touched millions of readers with his gentle and earthy tales of Indian life.

Twelve years after his death, however, the public learned that Forrest had a hidden past. Forrest Carter was actually Asa 'Ace' Carter, violent Ku Klux Klansman and Alabama Governor George Wallace's principal speechwriter - author of the infamous 1963 inaugural address "Segregation Now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!"

Oral Histories from the Eastern Shore

Eastern Shore Historic Society

Lee Bloxom's grandfather, Milton Killmon of Jenkins Bridge, grew potatoes on the bay side of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the same part of upper Accomack County where she spent her childhood.

Currently a Richmond resident and a Ph.D. candidate in the Media, Art and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University, Bloxom knew that oral histories can both encourage members of a community to remember the past and provide a way to preserve those memories for others.

In March 2009, the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society received funding from a partnership between the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the PNC Foundation that enabled Bloxom to conduct interviews and transcribe the more than 50 hours of audio recordings she has gathered from residents of Accomack and Northampton counties. She interviewed 34 people – white, African American, and at least one with American Indian heritage – 28 of whom still owned the land earlier generations of their families farmed.

Many still live on those farms.

More Stories

 

Scrabble School

VFH Grants Help Tell the Story of a Historic Rosenwald School

Scrabble School provides a window into the story behind Julius Rosenwald and his effort to build, upgrade and furnish school houses for black students throughout the South (some 5000 in all). There were 371 Rosenwald schools in Virginia alone.

The efforts of the Scrabble School Preservation Foundation with support from private and public organizations such as Lowe's, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and VFH, have ensured that the history of this school, its students and the role the school played in the community will not be forgotten.

Deep Traditions, New Expressions

VFH Grants Explore Virginia's Musical Heritage.

Three grants from VFH, all awarded in December 2007, will result in new recordings, publications, and exhibits exploring Virginia’s music traditions and their continuing vitality in the present day.

Rockbridge Friends of Mountain Music and Dance received a grant for interviews and video "field recordings" of traditional banjo players.  The result will be a double music CD with in-depth liner notes and an accompanying DVD documenting various claw-hammer and picking styles whose roots extend back prior to the advent of Bluegrass music in the 1940s and '50s.

Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College received support for an exhibit, an accompanying double-CD with extensive liner notes, and a related publication, all focusing on the history and musical and cultural impact of Rockabilly music in Virginia.

The Lonesome Pine Office on Youth, in Big Stone Gap, received a grant which resulted in the production of a companion CD of contemporary Appalachian music that was released in tandem with the film series Appalachia which recently premiered on PBS with national distribution and superlative reviews.  

Long's Chapel

Long's Chapel Preservation Society
$7,500 awarded June 2007

Long’s Chapel--a church which also served as a one-room schoolhouse, and its cemetery--was the heart of the Zenda community of former slaves and free blacks, founded in Rockingham County just after the Civil War.

The Long’s Chapel Preservation Society was founded by Alfred Jenkins, Jr. and his wife Robin in 2005. Two years later, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities funded a grant proposal from Mr. Jenkins; Dale MacAllister, the President of the Rockingham County Historical Society; and Nancy Bondurant Jones, author and historian, primarily to underwrite the printing and distribution of Ms. Jones’ book, Zenda: 1869-1930: An African American Community of Hope. Funds from the VFH grant would also go toward a workshop for teachers in October 2008, focusing on Zenda as well as other African American sites in Rockingham County and Harrisonburg.    

Mapping Local Knowledge: Danville, Va. 1945-1975

U.Va. Center for Digital History
$10,000 awarded March 2008

In the summer of 1963, Danville, Virginia, was the scene of civil rights protests, violence, and subsequent legal and political challenges to the underpinnings of Jim Crow segregation.  Local resistance to change was so pronounced that the New York Times  called it “the most unyielding, ingenious, legalistic, and effective of any city in the South.” 

VFH funds awarded in March 2008 are supporting the creation of an on-line exhibit, research and oral history interviews covering the history of the 1963 events in Danville and the racial history of the surrounding region. 

This work is being done in partnership with the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital History, which is also serving as the grantee. 

When Janey Comes Marching Home

“When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans”

Visual Arts Center of Richmond
$9,900 awarded June, 2008

When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans combines the work of photographer Sacha Pflaeging and author and filmmaker Laura Browder, a professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and former VFH Fellow whose book Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) traces the way the female soldier has been seen in American popular culture.

Through a grant to the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VFH has supported the collection of oral history interviews with several dozen women veterans together with photographic portraits of each of these women, leading to an exhibit at the Center and traveling to other locations in Virginia subsequently.

Legacy Museum of African American History

Deep in My Heart:
The Rise of Jim Crow in Central, Virginia, 1865-1954

Someday: The Fall of Jim Crow in Central Virginia, 1954-1980

$10,000, awarded December, 2004; $10,000, awarded December, 2005

Two grants from VFH have supported a pair of exhibits on the history and legacies of Jim Crow segregation in Central Virginia.

The first of the VFH-funded exhibits, entitled "Deep in My Heart," opened in June, 2005.  It focuses on the legal structures that supported racial segregation and on segregation's impact on the lives of African Americans in the Lynchburg area.  This story, of course, is not unique to Central Virginia, but by including photographs, documents, and other artifacts donated by members of the local community, the exhibit brings the experience of segregation "home," and the experience for visitors is extremely powerful.

The second exhibit is "Someday: The Fall of Jim Crow in Central Virginia, 1954-1980".  It focuses on the local Civil Rights Movement, placing this experience in a national context.  It covers the period from the Brown v. Board decision to the closing of Lynchburg’s all-black Dunbar High School twenty five years later.

Visit the Legacy Museum Website

Chickahominy Tribe

Tribal Brochure
$3,000 awarded March 2005

The VFH awarded a $3,000 grant to The Chickahominy Tribe in March of 2005 for the creation of a tribal history brochure. Using special funding from the NEH's We The People Initiative, VFH awarded several grants, including this one, for planning efforts related to the 2007 anniversary.

The Chickahominy tell their own story in the tribal history brochure, interpreting Indian history and culture with the participation of an 8-member History Committee and the Tribal Council.

Visit The Chickahominy Tribe's Website

Radford University

Women of Change, Women of Courage: Appalachian Activists
$10,000 awarded December 2005

The VFH awarded $10,000 to support an oral history project resulting in the development of a multi-media presentation on the contributions of Appalachian women devoted to fighting for change.  Project Director Theresa Burriss, author and professor at Radford, has spent the last year traveling Central Appalachia interviewing women who are engaged in some form of activism. This project focuses on women who protest for change by taking a stand wherever necessary. An example is Judy Bonds, who for years has protested against mountain top removal in West Virginia. Burriss also focuses on women who advocate change through their writing, such as poet Marilou Awiakta.

The Rose Group

China-America Festival of Film & Culture$10,000 awarded June, 2005
The China-America Festival of Film and Culture (October 5-9, 2005) broke new ground by using media and culture to present to American audiences the history, philosophy, and culture of a country that is increasingly important to the United States and Virginia in particular.