The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICH) is pleased to announce the awardees for their grants initiative In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness: What Does Freedom Mean To Us?

• Cranston Public Library with Folklorist Michael Bell
Creating Postcards from the Past, Sending Postcards into the Future: A dialogue about freedom as we lived and live it in Pawtuxet Village
Cranston Public Library with folklorist Michael Bell, and community volunteers combine the efforts of youth, scholars, artists, educators, and residents of all-ages in an investigation and public forum on the evolution of freedom as reflected in folk expressions, with special focus on Pawtuxet Village.

• Hera Gallery with American Civilization Scholar Paul Buhle
American Democracy Under Seige
Hera Gallery and American Civilization scholar Paul Buhle will develop an art exhibition and a series of panel discussions, that examine the role of artistic _expression, its freedoms, and the threats against those freedoms, by looking at local history, national trends, and cultural diversity in the arts.

• Oasis International with English Scholar Daniel Scott and Scholar of History and Africana Studies Peter Mendy
What Does Freedom Mean?
Oasis International, scholar of English Daniel Scott, and scholar of History and Africana Studies Peter Mendy will offer a series of public forums asking what freedom means to youth and immigrant communities of color; the forums will draw upon perspectives from literature, religious studies, history, and cultural studies.

• Rhode Island Institute for Labor Studies and Research with Political Scientist Lawrence Rothstein and Social Work Scholar Daniel Weisman
Unheard Voices
The Institute for Labor Studies and Research, Political Scientist Lawrence Rothstein, and Professor of Social Work Daniel Weisman will ask a diverse sample of workers in Rhode Island “What does freedom mean to workers?”; and they will produce videos, adult workshops, and television programs exploring how experience exercising rights and liberties informs the learning of democratic values in the workplace.

• RISD Museum with English Scholar Mairead Byrne
The Freedom Program
 The Freedom Program will involve the public in a series of programs that examine freedom as a specific and often limited human value in the context of American slavery.  In addition to an exhibition of Glenn Ligon’s Runaways and Freedom Tours lead by Community Prep students, the RISD Museum will offer an “Interview with Frederick Douglass” about his lecture tour during the Great Famine in Ireland 1845-6 while still a fugitive slave, co-scripted by English scholar Mairéad Byrne and scholar Charles Pace.

• Smith’s Castle with Historian Joanne Pope Melish
Rhode Island Slavery and Its Legacies
Historian Joanne Pope Melish will work with Smith’s Castle, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Pettaquamscutt Historical Society, and the Newport Historical Society; the group will develop a historical dramatization and curriculum materials for young children and adults to examine American freedom in the context of race, racial ideologies, and the history of slavery and emancipation in Rhode Island.

Funded jointly by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and the Verizon Foundation, this initiative is part of RICH’s 30th anniversary inquiry into the question What is Freedom?