Minnesota Humanities Center Collaborative Funds

The Minnesota Humanities Center provided collaborative funds to museums and organizations celebrating the ethnic identities of Minnesotans. Legacy funds supported the following grants and projects between July 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013:

Dakota Nation Wide Conference ($500.00)
The Dakota Nation Wide Conference brought indigenous people from across the continent together in traditional Dakota homelands to honor the past, share experiences and knowledge, and to heal. The conference included visits to sacred sites as well as speakers on a variety of topics.

Minnesota African American Museum ($2,500.00)
Legacy funds supported the opening and inaugural exhibit creation and display of “Bringing It Home,” a retrospective of Black n’ Brown Baseball in Minnesota and beyond. With this inaugural exhibition, MAAM supported the recovery and popular awareness of this once lost legacy. The exhibition focused on the vibrant and unique local history, towns, teams, and players that memorably marked it and also provided a panoramic survey of the Negro Leagues once credited as the largest sector of black-owned businesses in the United States offering employment, entertainment, economic opportunity, and pride to thousands of Blacks and others throughout the country.

Outcomes: Completed design work and printing for 15 images; professionally re-imaged several aged photos and related documents; and designed digital content for 3 monitors.

Red Lake Public School District ($10,000.00)
Red Lake Public School District used Legacy funds to ensure that all students and community members had access to print and electronic books via school site libraries. The project provided a range of printed and electronic materials, support for enhancing literacy engagement, and a vehicle to limit summer achievement loss.

Outcomes: During the grant period, 104 students utilized the electronic media made possible by the grant and 454 students utilized the summer library program and new materials purchased with the Legacy funds.

Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday ($5,155.50)
In 2012-13, the Humanities Center worked with the Governor’s Commission on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday 2013 on the statewide celebration of the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Funds supported the planning process for the event that took place on January 21, 2013 at Saint Paul Central High School Auditorium. This 2013 theme was “Moving Beyond Tolerance to Allophilia.”

Support for Council Partners ($75,572.35)
A portion of the Legacy funds appropriated to the Humanities Center for its purposes and programs were used to support collaborative, Legacy grant-funded work with the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, the Chicano Latino Affairs Council, the Council on Black Minnesotans, and the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. Activities supported are included in section two of this report.

Between July 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013, $2,608.42 in Legacy funding supported the exploratory phase of new Collaborative Funds program design and development.