Celebrate Ozark Culture at Buffalo River Folklife Festival
Funding will be used to support Ozark Folklife Festival in Searcy County, Arkansas. The festival will serve to promote heritage tourism in north Arkansas, and to fortify the existing partnerships between the National Park Service, the Searcy County Chamber of Commerce, the Buffalo National River Partners, and the Arkansas Master Naturalists.
Funding: $26,692.21
Partner: Searcy County Chamber of Commerce
Create Traveling Exhibit on Slavery
This project will fund the fabrication of a travelling exhibition of a downsized version of an exhibition ”Purchased Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808-1865.” The preparation of this travelling panel exhibit will provide well-researched interpretation of this time period and allow that interpretation to be shared at small venues such as Cane River Creole National Historical Park and other sites directly connect to this history. The exhibit will bring residents of the Delta – an area shaped by slavery and its legacies – on a journey that examines the meaning of the trade from the perspectives of traders and the millions of the enslaved who found themselves at the mercy of the antebellum slave market.
Funding: $22,838
Partner: Historic New Orleans Collection
Garland County Historical Society – Record Digitization and Database Project
This project aims to digitize 25,000 images, including photographs, documents, maps, film (negatives and slides), and audio tapes. These records will be saved in a searchable database called PastPerfect.
Funding: $30,657.48
Partner: Garland County Historical Society
Connecting with the Caribbean
The program will bring musicians from Guadeloupe and Martinique to Louisiana for a two-week residency focused on linguistic and musical connections. The musicians will perform free concerts at the Liberty Theater in Eunice in partnership with New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park’s Prairie Acadian Cultural Center, at the Old U.S. Mint in New Orleans, at Cane River Creole National Historical Park in Natchitoches, and at a venue chosen by Gulf Islands National Seashore. The concerts will promote heritage tourism and provide those attending with a new understanding of musical connections both historical and contemporary.
Funding: $25,000
Partner: Office of Cultural Affairs for the Consulate General of France and CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana)
Partner with Experience Louisiana Folklife Festival
The Experience Louisiana Festival would bring Eunice (LA) national and international media attention and provide exposure and opportunities for local musicians and creators of traditional crafts, many of whom depend on folklife demonstrations for income. The success of the festival and its participants would also encourage area young people to learn traditional music, crafts, and foodways by reconnecting them with their heritage and showing them that traditional activities have a place in the modern world.
Funding: $22,997.71
Partner: City of Eunice, the Eunice Rotary Club, St. Landry Tourist Commission, Louisiana State University, and the Louisiana Crafts Guild
Natchez Indian Exhibit for Grand Village of Natchez Indians
This project will replace the current reproduction Nahchee hut exhibit that sits near the mound group at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians (GVNI) using a majority of modern materials (steel, hardie board, steel mesh, concrete, thatch) in conjunction with natural materials (black locust wood, dirt, thatch) to ensure a lengthy lifespan while keeping the aesthetic design and feel of the original structures.
Funding: $23,724
Partner: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Natchez Convention and Business Bureau, the Natchez Tricentennial Commission
Host Preservation Summit at the Isaiah T. Montgomery House in Mound Bayou, MS
The primary focus of the Summit will be the development of a comprehensive plan for the restoration and adaptive reuse of the Isaiah T. Montgomery House. This restored National Historic Landmark will serve as a catalyst for Mound Bayou’s cultural heritage tourism program. The goal of the Preservation Summit is to position Mound Bayou to become an active participant and beneficiary of the thriving heritage tourism economy of the Mississippi Delta.
Funding: $24,998
Partner: Mississippi Heritage Trust, Knights and Daughters of Tabor
Corinth Grand Illumination
The Corinth Grand Illumination will be held to promote heritage tourism in Corinth, Alcorn County, Mississippi, and strengthen the existing partnerships between the National Park Service, the Siege and Battle of Corinth Commission, the Corinth Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Main Street Corinth, as well as many local civic clubs, organizations, the downtown business district, and area public schools.
Funding: $11,500
Partner: Corinth Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Main Street Corinth, and the City of Corinth
Last updated: February 4, 2022