Blog Updates
Teach Your Students the Art of Speaking and Power of Words through Poetry Out Loud
Our Poetry Out Loud program is currently welcoming partners for our 2021-2022 season. Poetry Out Loud (POL) is a national poetry recitation competition for high school students. By encouraging youth...
Visiting the Keweenaw ahead of our 2021-22 Great Michigan Read
This blog was written by Julia Irion Martins, our University of Michigan Summer intern. On my second morning in the Keweenaw, I walked from the Thomas Hoatson mansion in Laurium to the...
Reflections from our Departing CEO
Michigan Humanities wanted to speak to Shelly Hendrick Kasprzycki before she leaves her post as Michigan Humanities' CEO on September 17. We asked Shelly about her experience leading our...
Saugatuck-Douglas, Home to LGBTQ Communities for more than 100 Years
In the Fall of 2020, the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center was awarded a Humanities grant to carry-out the project called: "Century of Progress: A Timeline of Saugatuck-Douglas LGBTQ History." This...
A Conversation with Our Past Michigan Humanities Awards Recipients
On September 10, 2021 Michigan Humanities will honor and celebrate outstanding contributions to the humanities in our state in Mackinaw City, Michigan. We will recognize and celebrate individuals,...
Muskegon Community Education Center: An Alternative School to Prevent High School Dropouts
This year, Michigan Humanities had the great opportunity to partner with the Muskegon Community Education Center (MCEC) for our Poetry Out Loud program. Through this partnership we learned about the...
Kalamazoo Girls and Boys Travel the World through the Merze Tate Explorers Program
This month Michigan Humanities spoke to Sonya Bernard-Hollins, a Great Michigan Read and Poetry Out Loud partner, about her ongoing work as a journalist, publisher and founder of the Merze Tate...
The Women’s Suffrage Project – “It Happened Here: A Story of the Women’s Suffrage Movement”
March is Women's History Month, and to honor this month Michigan Humanities reached out to our 2019 Humanities Grant awardee: The Center for the Arts of Greater Lapeer. The Center has been working...
Learn about the Midwestern rap style and Flint’s rich music history in Geri Alumit Zeldes’ new documentary
Breed & Bootleg: Legends of Flint Rap Music is the new documentary of Dr. Geri Alumit Zeldes, a professor in Michigan State University’s School of Journalism and a long time partner and grantee...
Meet George Bayard III: Recipient of a Michigan Heritage Grant and Founder of GRAAMA
In 2015, the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives became a recipient of the Michigan Humanities Heritage Grant. Michigan Humanities wanted to reconnect with George Bayard III and share...
Author and Board Member Joseph Cialdella talks to Michigan Humanities about his new book Motor City Green
Michigan Humanities is pleased to share our conversation with Joseph Cialdella about his new book, Motor City Green, which dives into the history of urban gardening in Detroit. Joe is part of our...
Meet our DEI Action Council
Michigan Humanities has been an eager listener in the conversations taking place at a national level around racial inequalities in our country. In our role as statewide collaborators, we realized...
Reflections from a Michigan Humanities programs assistant
In late August, 2020, our staff team bid farewell to Hanna Espie, the Michigan Humanities Programs Assistant who joined us in late 2018. Hanna is embarking on a new adventure in a graduate program...
Meet Michigan Humanities’ University of Michigan interns
For several years, Michigan Humanities has been fortunate to partner with exceptional students from the University of Michigan's Rackham Public Engagement Internship Program. As noted on the program...
Watch Our Winning 2020 Poetry Out Loud Student Video Recitations
Even though we were unable to host an in-person 2020 Michigan Poetry Out Loud State Finals, we asked this year's POL school champions to submit their recitations through video so they could share...
Meet our 2020 Poetry Out Loud Essay Contest Winners
This spring, Michigan Poetry Out Loud students and teachers took part in online workshops with poets and educators and continued to share the power of poetry with us through written and spoken...
Labor Days: A History of Work
Raven Hill Discovery Center’s mission is to provide a place that enhances hands-on and lifelong learning for all ages by connecting science, history and the arts. Raven Hill is the only place in...
Meet Marcel ‘Fable’ Price and Rachel Gleason from The Diatribe
Last month, we were happy to virtually host the Poetry Out Loud teacher workshop session with Marcel 'Fable' Price and Rachel Gleason from The Diatribe, which facilitates after-school programs,...
Contemplation Leads to Inspiration
This is a time for personal reflection or as my mom would say, a time for contemplation. I’ve been reflecting on the past lately for inspiration. Mostly about my grandparents as they lived through...
Catching up with 2019 POL Champion, Tajah-Rayne Davise
We caught up with 2019 Michigan Poetry Out Loud State Champion Tajah-Rayne Davise to hear what her favorite part of POL was, and what she is up to now. What was your favorite part of the Poetry Out...
What’s it like to host a Museum on Main Street exhibit?
Michigan Humanities partners with the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street program to bring high-quality Smithsonian traveling exhibitions to Main Street museums, historical societies, and other...
A National Day of Racial Healing
Today, MH is proudly joining the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) and their partners in acknowledging a National Day of Racial Healing. The day is part of WKKF’s larger Truth, Racial Healing, and...
Talking Service in Michigan
Below is a letter to veterans from Benjamin Busch, a former United States Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and actor, who will facilitate Talking Service...
Voices of Latino Youth in Grand Rapids
Allison Palm is graduate student earning her Master's degree in Public Administration and Nonprofit Leadership and Management at Grand Valley State University. She is currently the Development and...
Albion’s West Ward School: From Segregation to Civil Rights
Dr. Wesley Arden Dick, Professor of History at Albion College, specializes in civil rights history and co-teaches, with Leslie Dick, a first-year seminar entitled “A Sense of Place: Albion & the...
Germans and Latinos of Lenawee: Finding Home
Amy Johnson served as Project Director for the Heritage Grant project, “Germans and Latinos of Lenawee: Finding Home”, from June 2015-June 2016, sponsored by the Lenawee County Historical Society of...
Anishnaabek – Odawa/Ottowa Journey Towards Understanding
On July 18th, I had the privilege of accompanying over a dozen Michigan Public School teachers on a journey to historical sites in Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario. The sites commemorate battles in the...
Familia, Comida, Historias, Y Obras | Family, Food, Stories, and Works
The committee members for Día De Los Muertos: Nuestras Historias, Our (Hi)Stories, are: Myrna Segura, Southwest Business Association; Mayte Penman, Southwest Solutions VISTA Project; Erin and Monte...
A Hero in Flint
Geri Alumit Zeldes, Ph.D., is an associate professor and graduate studies director in MSU’s School of Journalism, and the project director for “Hubert: His-Story.” Dr. Zeldes has won seven best...
Never Alone in Detroit
Kathryn Gross, Project Director for Never Alone in Detroit, has over 30 years of experience in education. She teaches at Loyola High School in Detroit, and is an adjunct professor at the University...
Heritage Grants Orientation, June 16, 2016
On Thursday, June 16, 2016, MH convened representatives from the 28 organizations that received Heritage Grants this year. Our visitors traveled from Detroit, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Flint, Alpena,...
Black Voices from Copper Country
The Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections is midway through its heritage grant project, Black Voices in the Copper Country, which examines the social...
Behold the Power of Objects
Museums have long used objects to reach and teach, and to draw their audiences closer. When the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society was presented with the opportunity to display a large private...
Community Partnerships with Coldwater’s Yemeni American Community Aim to Promote Equity and Inclusion through Humanities Programming
Arab Americans with roots in Yemen, many of whom are Muslim, make up the City of Coldwater's largest minority group. Like other migrants in the United States, Arab Americans often moved in search of...
Photographs and Public Programs help community learn from Japanese-American History during WWII
Marilyn Wheaton is director of the Marshall M. Frederick’s Sculpture Museum in Saginaw. In this post, she reflects their Heritage Grant project, which explored history, racial inequality, and the...
Nuestra Historia, Nuestra Voz: Youth in Grand Rapids Explore History and Identity through Art
Understanding one’s self and the nature of one’s identity can be tricky; there are a myriad of factors that influence who we are and why. Understanding the pieces of our identities is tough… and...
Welcome to the Heritage Grants Blog
Welcome to the Heritage Grants Blog! Over the coming weeks, this space will feature stories, information, and resources about the Michigan Humanities's Heritage Grants Program (HGP). Supported with...