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A reporter's goodbye
Editor's note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
I’m really bad at goodbyes. My mom says I cling to what I love, even when I know it’s time to let go. So I’m going to try and rip the Band-Aid off: Friday is my last day at WBUR. I’ll be joining my partner in Texas, a new beginning that’s been a long time coming for those who know me. I thought I’d write an ode to a role I’ve loved, bearing witness to beauty in all its forms, watching artists do alchemy, building community alongside the best team anyone could ask for.
I’ve spent a decade as a journalist in this region, first at The Boston Globe, and then for nearly seven years here on WBUR’s arts and culture team (which will forever and always be known by me as The ARTery). In that time, I’ve learned over and over again why arts and culture are the lifeblood of any city, but especially this one.
In June alone, I attended the Pride and “No Kings” marches, the Embrace Ideas Festival, “If You Can Feel It, You Can Speak It” poetry night, the Donna Summer Roller Disco at City Hall Plaza, the Lynn Musical Festival, an ancestral ceremony in Uphams Corner, and a revolutionary dance party in Cambridge. On Saturday, people will dance the afternoon away at the 52nd annual Festival Betances.
Despite the threats to federal funding, arts organizations continue to provide opportunities for celebration and finding common ground. And these organizations are fighting to be able to keep doing this work.
On Tuesday at the State House, I watched for several hours as stakeholders from the arts and culture sector gave testimony about the impact of losing thousands of previously allocated grants from the NEA, NEH and IMLS. MASS MoCa had $450,000 terminated over a four-month stretch.
“ We end up in a situation where we are preparing for vast amounts of uncertainty that are knocking things back further and further while wanting to uphold the fundamental promise that art, culture, creativity, self-betterment through the duty of care that we have to one another in this American democracy,” said Kristy Edmunds, director of MASS MoCa. “It is obscene what is being ripped and destroyed from the chainsaw pleasure of a single entity.”
To better clarify the scope of the damage, advocacy group MASSCreative partnered with New England organizations Arts4NH, CT Arts Alliance and the Cultural Alliance of Maine to conduct an impact survey; 89 organizations responded, with 38 based in Massachusetts. Here were some of the findings:
- Nearly $2.8 million in total grant funding was rescinded in Massachusetts
- A total of 621 jobs were supported partially or fully by these grants
- Respondents reported that 40 grants were rescinded, an estimated 73% of those coming from the National Endowment for the Arts
The survey found these funds were pulled from “education, programming for marginalized communities, mental health programs, youth development,” and more.
The Museum of African American History in Boston had a grant terminated and then reinstated in May. Though Noelle N. Trent, who serves as the president and CEO of the Museum of African American History, said at the hearing that ongoing litigation and the president’s executive orders mean they could lose that money again.
“The intention is to silence us at best and to erase us at worst,” Trent said. “Let me be clear: we will not be erased.”
Brian Boyles, executive director of Mass Humanities, said the Department of Government Efficiency ordered the termination of 88 National Endowment for the Humanities grants to organizations around Massachusetts. It’s the third-highest total of any state in the nation and they believe the original amount awarded in these grants was more than $25 million.
“ We have heard about a $381,000 grant in the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester that was canceled, a $185,000 grant to the New Bedford Historical Society to bring educators from all across the country together to learn about the role that city played in the Underground Railroad,” Boyles said. “I would argue the impact of the cuts to the humanities is nothing short than the loss of the tools that make our democracy possible.”
He quoted a speech President John F. Kennedy made at Amherst College in 1963: “Power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
So with my parting words, I’ll leave you with Andrea Gibson’s poem “Grief Astronomer.” The poet laureate of Colorado died on Monday. I interviewed them in April during the Boston screening of their documentary “Come See Me in the Good Light.” They Zoomed into the Somerville Theatre with their partner, Megan Falley, and what immediately struck me was their sense of wonder in the face of a terminal diagnosis. Their words offer healing and make the world a little more tender.
“Friend, you are who taught me
that a difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one.
Joy is simply easier to carry than sorrow,
and you could lift a city
from how long you’ve spent holding
what’s been nearly impossible to hold.
But this world needs those who know
how to do that. Those who could find
a tunnel with no light at the end
of it and hold it up like a telescope
to show that the darkness contains
Many truths that can bring the light
to its knees.
Grief astronomer, adjust the lens,
look close, tell the world
what you see.”
It’s been an absolute honor to serve this community as an arts and culture reporter at WBUR. Thank you. And I promise I’ll never stop telling artists’ stories.
