The Southern Poverty Law Center announced grants Tuesday supporting five African American museums in the South, including the Zora Neale Hurston Museum of Fine Arts in Eatonville.
The $50,000 grants from the SPLC, a nonprofit advocating for racial justice, also come with billboards advertising the museums.
Tafeni English leads the SPLC's Civil Rights Memorial Center. She says attempts are underway to rewrite history and attack voting rights.
"In the past year, coordinated special interest attacks on curricula in schools have ramped up," she said during an online press conference Tuesday. "There have been campaigns sought to ban access to pivotal works of art and literature and ban the ability of teachers to tell the full account of U.S. history."
The museums are bulwarks against those efforts, English said. "They are centers of truth and education in an age of misinformation. They are physical representations that indeed Black lives matter. And stories of Black excellence and resilience should be amplified now and into the future."
Meanwhile, a festival tied to the Eatonville museum is underway this month. You can find out more about that at zorafestival.org.
