This group is celebrating 50 years of helping teach Texans about art, history and more | Opinion

For the past 12 months, Humanities Texas, the state’s humanities council and state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has been celebrating its 50th anniversary.

When you look back over five decades of the organization’s existence, you realize what an incredible impact it has had on the people of this state. I think of what it has meant particularly to the residents and institutions of the Fort Worth area.

Yes, Humanities Texas, founded in 1973, has long had a connection with Cowtown and the surrounding area. In fact, the Texas Committee for the Humanities (which was its name when I served on the board from 1979 to 1982) made its first home at the University of Texas at Arlington before relocating to Austin. During its year-long celebration in 2023, the organization held receptions in cities all over the state, including Fort Worth.

Although it’s been around for 50 years now, there are still many Texans who really don’t know about it, even though they may have been beneficiaries of its wide range of programming — including those that improve the quality of classroom teaching, support libraries and museums, and create opportunities for lifelong learning.

Since its inception, Humanities Texas’ grant program has provided more than 4,700 grants totaling $21.2 million in 390 Texas communities for lectures, conferences, teacher workshops, exhibitions, reading programs and documentary films.

At a time when so many of our educators and educational institutions are under attack for encouraging students to explore and to think, I am proud that Humanities Texas has long provided teacher institutes and workshops that, by working with leading universities and cultural organizations, offer teachers the opportunity to work closely with prominent humanities scholars to explore topics at the heart of the state’s social studies and language arts curricula.

More than 790 teachers from 276 Fort Worth-area schools have attended Humanities Texas teacher professional development programs. Since 1990, 46 area teachers have received one of the organization’s “Outstanding Teaching Awards,” the most prestigious statewide awards in K-12 humanities instruction. Each award includes a $5,000 prize and an additional $1,000 for schools to purchase humanities-based instructional materials.

Fort Worth’s major museums, educational institutions, as well as smaller historical and cultural organizations, have benefited over the years from the 396 grants. And, Humanities Texas traveling exhibitions have been displayed at 80 area venues.

Humanities Texas has held 19 teacher institutes and workshops at various institutions here, including Texas Christian University, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and the Kimbell Art Museum.

These are just a few examples of how Humanities Texas has served North Texas and the entire state, doing exactly what Congress intended when it created the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1965, along with the National Endowment for the Arts.

It has long been clear to me that a strong democracy is dependent on its citizens studying and understanding their history and culture. By providing platforms for discussion and reflection of our diverse heritage, traditions and history, Humanities Texas has provided Texans in all corners of this vast state lifelong learning.

I am proud to have been connected to this great organization for so many years. It is my prayer that Humanities Texas will be even stronger over its next 50 years.

This story was originally published December 20, 2023 at 12:02 PM.