A Normal-based publisher and literary arts organization was delivered a big funding blow with the recent cancellation of two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora produces print and digital media, hosts programs and provides mentorship and community-building that centers art and literature from Black, African and African diasporic artists. Poet Alvin Aubert founded the platform in 1975 at SUNY-Fredonia to provide an avenue for Black poets to publish their work.
Obsidian arrived on the heels of the prolific Black Arts Movement — and as a response to how Jim Crow laws and white supremacy shaped the United States.
“There is a need to have folks come together as collectives to shore up possibility,” said Obsidian editor Duriel Harris, who has steered the platform at Illinois State University for a decade. “Black folks were forbidden to learn to read. Forbidden literacy. There is something very valuable in literacy. There’s something about literacy that gives one access to freedom. It’s liberatory.”
That’s what Obsidian’s current editorial team and supporters are interested in continuing, but they rely heavily on federal grants to do it — and Harris said the literary arts writ large are under attack. Black-led arts institutions in particular have faced systemic disinvestment that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have only recently sought to correct.
“What we are experiencing at this time is an assault upon the promise of America,” Harris said.
A form letter obtained by WGLT said the NEA is "updating its grant making policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President."
Obsidian received support from the NEA for the past six consecutive years. Harris said they were counting on $25,000 awarded by the NEA earlier this year to pay contributors and editors for their upcoming edition, and cover production costs for the digital and print journal. A second $40,000 grant applied to Obsidian’s 50th anniversary journal, was nearly complete when it, too, was canceled.
The Trump administration’s move to eliminate previously approved NEA grants does not appear tied to billionaire campaign donor Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] that focused much of its efforts on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The NEA previously canceled its Challenge America program, aimed at improving arts access to underserved communities, including children, veterans and rural communities.
The more recent cancellations list the Trump administration's priorities to include projects elevating Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, fostering A.I. competency and making the District of Columbia “safe and beautiful,” among other administration goals.
Harris worries stifling or dictating what and who gets funding isn’t just bad for artists — it’s bad for society.
“There’s no scholarship if you don’t have any poetry or any arts,” she said. “There’s nothing to talk about there. And then there’s also a kind of absence of imagination.”
Obsidian plans to move ahead with its program and publication goals for this year — with or without NEA funding. The team isn't optimistic that an appeals process outlined within the cancellation letters will result in funding being restored. Additional financial support comes from memberships, journal subscriptions and other charitable giving.
Obsidian recently participated in a research study that found 5% of all annual charitable giving in the U.S. goes to arts and culture. The share of that going to literary organizations was negligible.
According to the study, federal grants are the largest funding source for literary arts organizations.
“How we recover is a question,” Harris said. “Basically, it’s having an assault on a promise. There’s a contract and you begin to put things in place in relationship to your budget which you believe you have secured. Nothing is willy-nilly; everything is by design.”
University Galleries, the Uptown Normal art gallery housed within ISU's Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, also had an NEA grant cut. Director and Chief Curator Kendra Paitz told WGLT the gallery had to eliminate publication of an exhibition book tied to Kambui Olujimi’s solo show last year as a result of that cancellation. The Town of Normal’s $50,000 NEA grant, allocated for a mural in the future Uptown underpass, is secure for now.
