As the year concluding passes into one marked by global strife and domestic polarization, our work at the Mellon Foundation has never been more urgent. Throughout 2023 we sharpened our grantmaking to be as strategically impactful as possible, strengthening the ethos of problem-solving that animates our funding and that has remained the best defense against many of the challenges we and our grantees have collectively confronted in this dynamic time. The cumulative force of Mellon’s support during the turbulent past year underscores the need for even more pointed grantmaking in the year to come, as we continue to reinforce the power of the arts, culture, and humanities to do robust justice work in the United States.  

In 2023, we stood firm and stayed vocal on behalf of the fields we fund by rigorously consolidating and judiciously deploying significant resources in Mellon’s signature initiatives and program areas.  

The year began with the launch of our newest initiative, Imagining Freedom, a $125 million commitment to counter the dehumanization of the American criminal legal system through the arts and humanities. Among other vital endeavors, Imagining Freedom supports incarcerated artists, writers, and thinkers who are building out creative and intellectual communities among those both inside and outside the system; documents and archives the experiences of those who are impacted by it; and, crucially, brings directly into dialogue and into our national discourse those with firsthand knowledge of the inhumanity of incarceration and a future-minded commitment to imagining a better system to address harm in our country.

Month by month and grant by grant in our program areas, we maximally reinforced Mellon’s mission throughout 2023, upholding a results-oriented approach at every turn to best support our grantees. This work ranged from further enacting Higher Learning’s fulsome vision to strengthen and expand Native American Studies programs at colleges and universities across the United States; to edifying digital justice efforts at the American Council of Learned Societies under the auspices of Public Knowledge; to providing critical design, construction, and programming support for the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago through Humanities in Place, to ensuring the preservation of the vibrant legacy of Just Above Midtown (JAM) at MoMA in New York through Arts & Culture.

A specially designed bookshelf containing an assortment of books 

A view of a specially created bookcase with four books displayed on the top of the case

Poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts, the founder of Freedom Reads, a Mellon grantee partner. In 2023, more than 170 Freedom Libraries (pictured) have been placed prisons and juvenile detention centers across the US. Photos: Alexander Saladrigas for Mellon Foundation

In black and white, a portrait of a Black poet who is wearing a hat and looking at the photographer

In Monumental Art, Discover Untold Stories of America 

In Monumental Art, Untold Stories of America

Supporting work that centers the voices and knowledge of people directly affected by the US criminal legal system

Imagining Freedom

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Imagining Freedom brings directly into dialogue and into our national discourse those with firsthand knowledge of the inhumanity of incarceration.

Three Landmarks and a Story Forever Protected

Inside the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where in 1955 an all-white jury acquitted J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, both white men, who later confessed to murdering Emmett Till.

A view inside a courthouse room set with rows of wooden chairs and sunlight coming in from the tall windows on the right side of the room

Inside Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, Illinois, where Emmett Till’s memorial service was held on September 3, 1955. According to newspapers, the Church was filled to capacity, with an additional 10,000 attendees listening to the service on loudspeakers outside. Mamie Till-Mobley chose an open-casket service so that mourners—and ultimately the nation—could see what racist violence had done to her child.

A view down the maroon tile aisle of a church that is roped off with a velvet rope

A commemoration to mark Graball Landing, where Emmett Till’s body is believed to have been recovered from Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River. Multiple markers, starting with the first one in 2008, were desecrated until the 2019 installation of this bulletproof sign, now observed by security cameras. Along with the courthouse and Roberts Temple, Graball Landing is now federally protected.

A metal plaque describing "Graball Landing" set on a stand in a field

Near the marker for Graball Landing, which commemorates the site where Emmett Till’s body is believed to have been recovered, visitors can walk to the river bank of the Tallahatchie River.

A view at sunrise looking down the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. The river is still and is set between two banks of greenery.

Visitors to the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner can take part in tours of the site. Tours begin across the street at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center—an official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service—which serves as a public education space dedicated to storytelling and historic preservation. 

The exterior of the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi

Cotton fields dot the landscape across the Mississippi Delta, where two of the Till National Monument sites are located.

A view looking down a dirt road at sunset that is lined with white cotton plants on either side

Explore inspiring work by visiting our Grants Database to view a list of our grantee partners who received grants in 2023

In her annual letter, Elizabeth Alexander, president of Mellon Foundation, highlights the Foundation’s activities in 2023, with related financials, grantmaking, and other notes.

2023 Annual Report Header Image

A mural as part of “Painting in the River of Angeles: Judy Baca and The Great Wall,” at LACMA. Photo: Carlos Jaramillo

An artist standing on scaffolding while installing a sketched artwork on a wall with another person crouches on the floor next to it

Brent Leggs, left, and Tiffany Tolbert, of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Photo: Yael Malka

An African American man in a dark sport coat stands on the viewers left, and on the right is an African American woman in a maroon sweater with glasses. They are in front of a gold leafed tree.

The Yanyeidí pole, part of Kootéeyaa Deiyí, a totem trail in Juneau, Alaska. Photo: Acacia Johnson

A vibrantly painted totem pole set against a backdrop of a foggy forest landscape

A view from Paraíso Las Lunas in Puerto Rico. Photo: Christopher Gregory-Rivera

A lush rainforest landscape with greenery and red tropical flowers set among mountains on a bright sunny day

The Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, Illinois. Photo: Jess Ingram. All photos for Mellon Foundation

An African American man dressed in a dark suit reaches up with this right hand toward a section on a brick wall

2021 Annual Report (PDF)

2020 Annual Report (PDF)

2019 Annual Report

Office of the President

Photo: Sharif Hamza for Mellon Foundation

Headshot of Elizabeth Alexander

President

Elizabeth Alexander

The arts, culture, and humanities are liberatory forces that are a means to empowerment and enlightenment.

EA bio audio

Artists as Catalysts

Artists as Catalysts Navigation Image

Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Borderlands Cultures

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 