Serving Virginia for More than 50 Years
Since 1974, Virginia Humanities has served as the Commonwealth’s state humanities council, bringing people together through grants, public programs, partnerships, and storytelling.
We help Virginians share and preserve the stories that shape their communities, connecting history, culture, and civic life in ways that matter today. Through grants and fellowships, public lectures, teacher resources, radio conversations, and folklife preservation, our work strengthens understanding, honors difference, and builds connections across the Commonwealth.
By the Numbers
July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025
Authors featured at our 2025 Virginia Festival of the Book
Conversations aired on our With Good Reason radio show
Online visitors to Encyclopedia Virginia
IMPACT STORY
The Untold Story of VCU’s First Black Nursing Graduate
“It was as if they were trying to erase her.”
Dina Weinstein, 2024–2025 Rosel Schewel Fellow
In the 1950s, barriers to education and systemic discrimination kept Black students from many professional programs. Richmond native Charlotte Anne Wynn Pollard defied those limits to become the first Black nursing graduate at Richmond’s Medical College of Virginia (now VCU). Through our Rosel Schewel Fellowship, writer Dina Weinstein is bringing this pivotal story to light.
DONOR STORY
Your Support
Stories like Charlotte Anne Wynn Pollard’s wouldn’t reach the public without supporters like you. Your investment fuels grants, fellowships, public programs, and community engagement across Virginia. That work that helps us, as historian Ed Ayers puts it, “see ourselves in the context of time, place, and other people” — a rare yet essential perspective.
“We are fortunate to have one of the best state humanities organizations in the nation.”
Ed Ayers
Ayers has been involved with Virginia Humanities since the 1980s — as a grant recipient, board member, host of BackStory, and, importantly, a dedicated donor. “We are fortunate to have one of the best state humanities organizations in the nation,” he shared. “We should do everything we can to support its invaluable work.”
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Image Credits:
Fundación Socio Cultural Diablada Boliviana performed the Diablada dance to open the 2024 Reston Multicultural Festival. Photo by Pat Jarrett/Virginia Humanities
Held on September 21, 2024, Run Richmond 16.19 took participants on a journey of more than 400 years of Black history. The event, which we supported through grant funding, featured a Black history pop-up exhibit and a living museum experience, where young African American children brought historical figures to life. Photo courtesy of the Djimon Hounsou Foundation
Clintwood Mayor Danny Lambert, who has served on Clintwood’s town council since 1992, led a rededication of the restored “Echoes” mural outside the Jettie Baker Center on June 14, 2025. The event was part of our Murals & Mountain Traditions Festival, organized in honor of our 50th anniversary as Virginia’s state humanities council. Photo by Nina Wilder/ Virginia Humanities
2024–2025 Public Humanities Fellow Perri Meldon presented her research on the cultural and environmental history of the Great Dismal Swamp at the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Museum in Chesapeake, Virginia, on January 30, 2025. Photo by Peter Hedlund/Virginia Humanities
