The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston is one of many historic and cultural institutions across the nation to lose access to federal funding.

The Trump administration put the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the agency that provides funding to libraries and museums, on leave. The museum had submitted a grant proposal for $500,000 for the institute's African American History and Culture program.

Desmond Bertrand-Pitts, CEO of the museum, said although the funds are not available, they will still be there to serve the community.

"Organizations like ours have to work harder to prove our value and our worth but we have good partners like the Kinder Foundation to keep us going," Bertrand-Pitts explained. "They're in support of a Juneteenth Initiative that we have coming up. The federal funding announcement can affect programming, but the museum is still going to live on."

He added federal funding is not used for day-to-day operations but cuts could affect some of its outreach programming with kids and veterans.

In 2023, the museum added more than $2.5 million to the Houston economy. Bertrand-Pitts pointed out although the museum highlights the stories of African Americans in the military, everyone can learn from the exhibits. He argued recent Trump administration attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion make their work even more important.

"We are American history," Bertrand-Pitts asserted. "There are so many freedoms that we now enjoy that would have not been possible had it not been for the United States Colored Troops, and for the Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen, all of the men and women that came after."

The museum has raised $10 million as part of a $13 million capital campaign for its "Ready and Forward" program. Funds will be used to repair and renovate the facility and expand exhibits and programs.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Search "St. Croix River Valley" online and you'll find competition for your current desktop background.

The waterway is a government-designated National Wild and Scenic River, with all its blues and picture-perfect hues. Scenic is an understatement. Living in the dual-state area, which is 30-some miles northeast of Minnesota's Twin Cities, is an artist colony of sorts (how could you not be artistically inspired by the views?).

Local arts organization ArtReach St. Croix is helping to connect them.

Art to Art

"Artists often work in isolation, especially in the semi-rural and rural space," says Heather Rutledge, ArtReach's executive director. "In the St. Croix Valley, the artists are not parading down the street, but one of the ways that we [connect them] is network building among the artists."

Spanning the final 60 miles of the lower St. Croix River in Wisconsin and Minnesota, ArtReach has identified 168 local creatives on its directory.

Beyond the interactive list, the Stillwater-based nonprofit heads a mobile art gallery (which often sets up in nearby state parks), an area arts event calendar, and shares artist resources for folks in the region. ArtReach also hosts art at its gallery and month-long NEA Big Read programs. The list truly goes on.

Distinct Community, Place

ArtReach's slogan is "art at every bend in the river"-and it means it.

"The artists are building these bridges across the river, and see this geography as meaningful. And these programs that ArtReach does reinforce that," Rutledge says.

Harnessing multiple counties, small towns, villages-and two states-into a connected art community is special, she says, especially considering the area's unique suburban-skirt flavor.

"[We're] in this liminal space between the metro and fully outstate rural spaces," Rutledge says.

"When I moved here, I thought how incredible it was to be in a space that's very close to the metro and yet a world away," she says. "The other day I moved an exhibition from the Somerset Library to the Osceola Library, and then I came back to Stillwater. And on that little loop, I saw three different bald eagles."

She says the area sees a big economic impact from the arts, too-measuring nearly $170 million in historic total and employing over 2,000 people in the valley in one year, according to a 2022 Americans for the Arts report.

Rutledge and the ArtReach team continue fostering what they love best (hint: it's art!). They continually work with local tourism departments and the National Park Service to set up programming. And "Poets of Place," the next mobile art gallery, is set for this summer.


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Greater Dakota News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

For nearly two decades, Rachel Olivia Berg has created large-scale artworks for companies. Think hotel lobbies or resort hallways. 

Though undoubtedly aesthetic, the works felt impersonal, branded, commercial. 

“You’re telling other people’s stories,” the artist says. In 2023, she moved away from projects like those and focused on stories and communities important to her. So when Berg, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, heard of a Rapid City, South Dakota, tribal health center looking for art, she dove in. 

Oyate Health Center 

The project’s arts selection committee received maybe half a dozen proposals from Berg—as well as submissions from dozens of creatives across the region. 

What’s now a clinic-wide, permanent collection with over 100 pieces was two years in the making, from the open call to installation process. 

All the selected (and compensated) art pieces focus on culture-specific healing, made by 50-some enrolled tribal citizens from the Great Plains area, from professional artists to community creatives. 

“[We] really focused on those visuals of healing and how we as Native people dissect that word—healing spiritual health as well as physical and mental health,” says committee member Ashley Pourier, a museum curator and a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. 

‘Our Own Visual Vocabulary’ 

The Great Plains Tribal Health Board spearheaded the project. 

Taking over management and reconstruction, the former Indian Health Services Center-turned-Oyate Health Center became a brand-new building—with a brand new need for art. But not just any art. 

Since the healthcare center is for Native American patients and staff, the art inside needed to be, too. Having Indigenous symbolism about has transformed the space, and what it means to heal inside it. 

“It’s important for us, for Indigenous people, to have our own visual vocabulary, to have our own understanding. You can walk into hospitals across the country and there’s frequently flowers or things that are very universal,” Berg says of the more generic art. 

“But what’s really nice about Oyate [Health Center] is that we were able to create art from our perspective, things we understand, things we relate to. It helps you feel like it’s your space; it helps you feel that you’re meant to be there.” 

The art collection, from photography to paintings to 3D work, touches on spiritual and cultural understanding.

Berg’s piece, Eagle Buffalo Star, is an expansive wall relief artwork. Made of diamond-shaped resin tiles, it’s a lively, almost moving image of a buffalo and eagle connected by a star. 

She started with the idea of traditional beadwork and star quilting: Little pieces come together, creating meaning. Its oranges, yellows, browns and blues—colors of the sky and earth in the Black Hills—shine in the center’s new pediatric area. 

“The stars … are hopeful and help us to think of the healing aspect of our connection, of how we’re not alone,” Berg says. 

There’s a new and meaningful feeling of community in the space. Berg calls the health center a “hub,” thanks to its art from people across her community. 

“It’s literally a museum. It’s a collection,” Berg says. “It’s not just a building. It’s our building.”


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Mighty sword and not-so-mighty rubber chicken in tow, Jenny Graham prepares for her upcoming show: The Three Musketeers & The Very Pretty Diamonds. 

She’s playing a servant to the queen herself—full of eye rolls and comical disgruntlement, not unlike her real-life persona. 

“I’m a sassafras,” the actress says playfully. 

Graham is part of Expanding Stage. It’s a partnership between theatre company Black Hills Playhouse and a program for people with disabilities, DakotAbilities. It all started in 2013 as a residency program trial. It stuck, and it’s now one of just a couple companies in the state with similar offerings.

“I love doing [theatre]. I’ve been doing it for the last eight years, and I wouldn’t change it for anything,” Graham says.

Magical and Adaptable 

Debra Kern Workman is the education artistic director at Black Hills Playhouse (which is home to a range of objectively outstanding programs) in South Dakota. She coordinates with teaching artists to educate actors in theatre concepts, who put on shows several times a year across the state. 

“What does it look like to support professional artists for who they are?” Kern Workman asks. “It is magical.” 

DakotAbilities actors—typically a dozen or so per show—rehearse twice a week. The stage is entirely adaptable: Need help holding something? Let’s tie it to your wheelchair.

Want to communicate in other ways? Insert picture boards or voice actors to help you shine. Maybe a costume’s fabric texture isn’t it (who wants scratchy, irritating zippers anyway?) so actors can modify those choices. 

“What’s really cool is the fact that the Black Hills Playhouse is able to adapt to the people that we serve,” says Kelly Breen, a direct support professional at DakotAbilities.

“We have a lot of individuals with a lot of different needs … body movements, body types, and we’re just able to make it happen,” she says. 

Graham, who admits she sometimes gets nervous on stage or forgets her lines, says having a stage partner helps her do what she does best: Perform. 

An Open Stage 

“I think the most cool thing is when we perform … and the audience seeing us perform,” she says.

Graham will direct her electric wheelchair across the stage, lyrically driving it during sword fights or other scenes. She hopes people will leave her shows with more compassion. 

“I wish that people would understand the disabilities of different people more, that it’s not scary,” Graham says. 

And after eight years of Expanding Stage and dozens of performances, that’s happening. 

“When people work with us on these shows, I’m like, you will never see theater in the same way,” Kern Workman says. “[This] program has informed us on what it means to be inclusive, and what it means to support people no matter what theatre you’re doing.”

DakotAbilities has doubled performances due to popularity; folks will fly in from across the country to catch a show. 

Kern Workman recalls a mother seeing her son, who uses a wheelchair, dance for the first time during a performance. She was in awe. 

“Yes, he can dance,” Kern Workman says. 

“And it was beautiful.”


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.