JACKSON — Just before midnight on April 2, Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, received an email from an unfamiliar address.

While the identity of the messenger was cryptic, the message was clear — about two-thirds of the organization’s funding had been cut.

Rockoff said $1 million in federal funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities was immediately terminated, with another $500,000 planned for 2025 canceled. Most of the humanities council’s funding comes from the endowment, which it regrants to cultural institutions across Mississippi.

A statewide freeze on cultural grant funding

Due to the cut, the humanities council has frozen its May 1 grant cycle.

“These aren’t large grants. Our largest grant was basically $10,000, but that $10,000 goes a long way to something like the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, or the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs, or the Tennessee Williams Festival up in Clarksdale — those are the sort of organizations and events that will suffer because of these cuts,” he said.

While the email shocked him, Rockoff said the possibility had been looming following reports about cuts to national endowment staff.

The council still owes about $58,000 to grantees. In 2024, the humanities council funded more than 750 public humanities programs — many of which were free to the public.

Local museums and festivals feel the impact

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs is an annual recipient of the humanities council’s largest $10,000 grant and has also received endowment funding for special initiatives.

“This year, with the prior grant we got from the humanities council, we were doing a series of exhibitions and lectures, including folks from Mississippi — Tammy Greer at the University of Southern Mississippi — but also folks like Jack Davis from the University of Florida, who’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental historian,” said Julian Rankin, the museum’s executive director. “So, these are ways for us to really bring the community in and offer free programming that brings edification and scholarship to the local folks.”

Rankin said art museums are more than images on a wall — they’re about bringing stories to life that people can connect with.

“Certainly, losing funding … it really does put a lot of these programs in jeopardy across Mississippi,” he said. “The lectures, the new exhibitions that can happen with those kind of funding sources — those are going to have to be replaced, and it’s not clear where that funding comes from.”

Historical societies brace for reduced support

The Hancock County Historical Society, a Bay St. Louis archive with about 300 members, has been a regular recipient of humanities council grants. In 2024, it used a $2,500 grant to produce “Sink or Be Sunk,” a play about the Battle of Bay St. Louis during the war of 1812.

“We are the record-keeper of the history of Hancock County. We have thousands of photographs. We have legal documents. We have cemetery records. We have birth records. We have marriage certificates, we’ve got books, we’ve got laying plats … part of our mission is to share this history,” said President Chris Roth.

He added: “One of these plays might cost $5,000, but we get $2,500 say, from (the) Mississippi Humanities Council, then we go do fundraising donations to get the other money together. So, (the funding cut) just makes it more difficult for us.”

Roth said that, without federal support, small institutions will have to rely on local government and private donors to fill the gaps.

“All nonprofits (in the humanities) are continually either trying to raise money or get donations to fulfill their mission, and their missions are very important. Without them, we’d be back in the Dark Ages again … I don’t mean to dramatize it, but it’s going to be a significant reduction,” Roth said.

As Roth was interviewed, Gretchen Klinefelter, a member of the Diamondhead Garden Club, filled out paperwork to document nine southern live oak trees.

She said she has faith Hancock County residents will help fill the gap — but she worries about other communities.

“We’re fortunate to live in Hancock County, where people care, but it is disappointing for counties that may not have the economics to support that,” she said.

Libraries face digitization delays

In 2021, the Hancock County Historical Society received a $9,750 humanities council grant to digitize part of its archive, preserving delicate materials and making them accessible to the public.

The cuts to national endowment funding are part of a broader rollback in federal support. According to The Clarion-Ledger, the White House has also targeted the Institution of Museum and Library Services for cuts. The agency distributes federal funds to libraries through the Mississippi Library Commission, which received $2.1 million last year. In early April, institution staff were suspended, halting the release of those funds.

The Hancock County Library System had partnered with the Internet Archive — a project previously supported by the national endowment — to digitize its local history collections.

“Being in hurricane territory and with the humidity, things can get lost, and if that is destroyed, it could potentially be very hard to replace,” said Director John Brdecka. “Digitizing it preserves it … so that their truth and their stories … can continue to be made accessible to our community. If we don’t do the right steps to preserve that … we are not really doing our job.”

The library’s digitization began with local historian Dan Ellis and expanded to rare publications, including an African American publication, Mississippi Star Magazine. Now, Brdecka said, those projects are on hold until the library finds funding through collection cuts.

While the library system receives about $1.6 million from local sources — compared to under $30,000 in federal grants — Brdecka said the loss of federal partnerships could impact more than budgets. An exchange in expertise is often made in partnerships like the library’s digitization.

“I fully believe that funding should be done at the community level, and I think that our elected officials need to be made aware of that, and that it’s all about what the community needs are,” Bredcka said. “If the community says that they want and need a library system, then our elected politicians need to listen.”

Exploring private funding, hoping for public support

Rockoff said the Mississippi Humanities Council is pursuing private donations and partnerships while continuing to appeal for federal support. On April 29, the Mellon Foundation awarded $15 million to state humanities councils nationwide — including $200,000 to the Magnolia State’s council.

He called the funding a welcome surprise but emphasized that it highlights the broader issue: states like Mississippi rely more heavily on federal support due to limited private funding.

“Think about how the Walter Anderson Museum has its impact in Ocean Springs as a community hub for arts and education and community building, and then multiply that by all the all the little towns that have their historical museum or have these sorts of cultural organizations,” Rockoff said.

“Mississippi’s population is shrinking … these cultural resources, these museums and libraries, they are really vital to the quality of life in our state,” he said. “Small grants can have a really big impact, especially in small towns … a lot of that history will not be shared, will not be preserved, and a lot of the essence that makes Mississippi towns and communities so unique and special might be lost.”