This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene. The Nashville Banner is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization focused on civic news. Visit nashvillebanner.com for more information.
The decades-old Southern Festival of Books, an anchor of Nashville’s literary community, is among the potential victims of the latest round of cuts proposed by President Donald Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
Tim Henderson, executive director of Humanities Tennessee, sent out a memo “with great urgency” Thursday afternoon, informing community members that the organization had received notification that its National Endowment for the Humanities grant, worth about $1.2 million annually, had been terminated. According to the memo, that funding supports the Southern Festival of Books, held every year in Nashville since 1989, in addition to books coverage service Chapter 16 (through which the Scene sources much of its books coverage), young writer and reader programs, history programs celebrating the country's 250th anniversary, and funding for rural museums and historical societies.
The memo also urges supporters to contact congressional representatives and support the organization financially.
Oct. 26-27 in downtown Nashville, the festival will celebrate literary excellence close to home
"While we stand up for the continued NEH funding, which is appropriated by Congress and at their discretion, our team is also working feverishly to continue our private fundraising efforts," Henderson writes. "We know we are not alone in feeling the impact of federal budget cuts to our programs and people. We know you have many causes you care for deeply. And we thank you for your efforts to stand up for the humanities, for all Tennesseans and all Americans."
The New York Times reported earlier this week that Trump and Musk aides had pushed out NEH's leader and were demanding dramatic cuts both to its staffing and grant funding around the country. State humanities councils like Humanities Tennessee derive most of their funding from NEH, the Times reported.
"The status of the festival right now is, I would say, tenuous," Henderson told the Nashville Banner as he was preparing for a board meeting Thursday evening. "Our anticipation is that we would put that festival on as people would know it."
Henderson says the organization is "really opposed" to charging entrance fees to the festival, which is partially funded by private donations and foundation support. He said he has sought unsuccessfully to get answers from NEH.
Humanities Tennessee carries a full-time staff of eight, with two contract employees, overseeing work in all corners of the state, Henderson says. Those jobs and the programs overseen by the organization aren't at risk in the short term but could be if the federal support goes away entirely.
"Without that it's hard to imagine doing nearly all of the work that we do," he says.
The NEH awarded $13.63 million to projects in Tennessee between fiscal years 2019 and 2023. Other local direct recipients have included Fisk University, The Hermitage, Vanderbilt University and the Country Music Hall of Fame. This pool of funding also supports descendent-led archaeological research at Fort Negley.Â
Here’s how we could see an impact on the state and local levels
Dr. Angela Sutton, who leads the Fort Negley project, tells the Banner she is dismayed, especially because the work is "about church and veterans and homemaking and neighborhoods — themes that are so important to our state right now."
She also emphasizes her concern about the manner in which the funding is being canceled. "All the grants that have already been made, Congress signed off on, so they are legally ours," she says.
This year's iteration of the Southern Festival of Books, the 37th annual, is scheduled for Oct. 18 and 19 at the Bicentennial Mall, the Tennessee State Museum and the Tennessee State Library. Last year's event featured an estimated 175 authors and 25,000 attendees.Â
A spokesperson for Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Trump supporter whose District 7 includes the festival site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Â
Locally, Trump's and Musk's cuts have threatened food pantries, weather forecasters, vaccine distribution, health research, transportation planning and libraries and museums. Metro Nashville has already filed one lawsuit and threatened more as it seeks to preserve funding already promised by the federal government.
Steve Haruch contributed reporting. This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
