Following its restoration, the childhood home of August Wilson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offers public programming, residencies for artists, and more, while paying homage to the pathbreaking playwright. Photo: Ed Massey. Courtesy of the Daisy Wilson Artist Community, Inc.

A view of downtown Pittsburgh at sunset with brick buildings lining a street in the foreground

Making Art and History “Useful”: August Wilson House 

Poem 69 is one of the 200 poems carved by Chinese immigrants in the walls of the detention barracks at Angel Island Immigration Station. The authors of the poems are largely unknown.

Chinese letters carved into wood

To “Feel” History: Angel Island Immigration Station 

Constructed in 1838 and now being restored as the future home of the AFRO Archives, the Upton Mansion is the last example of a Greek revival country house in the city of Baltimore. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo courtesy of AFRO Archives

In black and white, a historical home in Baltimore 

A Homecoming for the AFRO Archives of Black News and Culture

At the Queensboro Dance Festival

Preview: Turnout NYC

What does spatial justice mean, and what does that look like on the ground? What do we know about past practices that are ingrained in that soil?

Thaïsa Way is director of garden and landscape studies at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard University research institute, library, museum, and garden located in Washington, DC. Photo: courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks

A White landscape architect wearing glasses looks at the camera

Cultivating the History of Place

Mellon’s Humanities in Place team visits with Donnamarie Barnes, director of history and heritage at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm, on Shelter Island in Long Island, New York in August 2022.

A historical home docent gestures to artworks hanging on a wall that is adorned with decorative wallpaper. 

Funding Tomorrow’s Public Square

There’s the significance of the specific place—that’s what the Park Service does so well.

I know what gaps there were and what areas I could use my skills to improve it.

Monuments are not eternal, static objects. They change over time.

Labor movement leader César Chávez at his California home, which is now a national monument. Photo: courtesy National Park Service

In black and white, a man stands in an outdoor setting. A hill is visible behind where is stands. 

On the “Front Lines” of History at America’s National Parks

For “Outside” Magazine, Elizabeth Alexander writes about an expansion of the National Park Service Humanities Fellowship, supported by Mellon Foundation.

Outside logo

Op-Ed: We Need to Learn the Forgotten Stories in Our National Parks

Kinfolk Executive Director idris Brewster (left); Chief Strategy Officer Micah Milner, right. 

Two people in a sunlit room. One person with a beard is perched on a stool; the other is standing next to the seated person. On the wall are framed works of art showing different figures.

New Technology Opens Doors to Meet People and Places of Our Past

She used to say that’s why her poems were so short, because she had six children and no closed doors.

It has been interesting to see how many young people know her work now.

“won’t you celebrate with me”

Lucille Clifton and her six children (left to right): Gillian, Fredrica, Lucille, Alexia, Sidney, Channing, and Graham. Photo: Courtesy of Sidney Clifton

Six children sit with their mother on a porch

A Legendary Poet’s Home Becomes a Sanctuary for Young Artists

The Results of a Regenerative Neighborhood Development

Community members outside Sweet Water Foundation’s RND [Regenerative Neighborhood Development] Park & Meeting House.

Six people are outside a park and meeting house

Re-generation and Re-storying with Sweet Water Foundation

Residents of Ekvn-Yefolecv, an intentional ecovillage community of Indigenous Maskoke people, with a recently constructed timber-frame that will become a 4,500-square-foot community center. Photo: courtesy of Ekvn-Yefolecv

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand in an open frame of a building that is set against a woods.

Public Places‚ Public Stories

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

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.

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."

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" 