tRump Cuts Endanger Alabama Civil Rights History

 From a Washington Post story:

 

Dynamite outside a synagogue: Civil rights stories imperiled by federal cuts

A young janitor’s role in thwarting an attempted bombing in 1958 is the latest addition to an Alabama oral history project now facing the loss of federal funds.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — He came to historic Temple Beth-El to tell his story, which is also the congregation’s story: How, during the early turbulence of the Civil Rights era, he helped to foil what would have been a devastating attack on their synagogue. 

The risk of stories like Pruitt’s being lost forever is growing. In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order dismantling the federal agency funding the project, the Institute of Museum and Library Services. On April 15, Mjumbe received an email citing the order and saying his $242,000 grant would not be renewed because the work “no longer serves the interest of the United States.” The agency, the email explained, was “repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the president’s agenda.”

The oral history project has a list of at least 150 more people to interview — many in their 80s and 90s — before their memories fully fade or they die. Mjumbe’s father-in-law recorded his own story about being a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s as young activists challenged segregated buses across the South. Not long after, he developed dementia.

“Every day there is a very real likelihood that there is something that could be lost in terms of their recollections,” said Mjumbe, who titled the project “Evidence of Things Not Seen.”

Thanks tRump.