ART PRODUCED BY LEONARD JEFFERSON.
The Mellon Foundation pledged $125M for arts and humanities organizations working with incarcerated people.
Since 2020, Mellon has spent $40M on its Imagining Freedom initiative, which provides funding for organizations working on art and education programs for prisoners.
- Imagining Freedom grants were recently given to support initiatives at four new organizations:
- Mellon president and poet Elizabeth Alexander said the Foundation's giving is motivated by the following question:
- "How do we understand our society, that is, one where we don't 'other' people and forget about them, where we don't dehumanize people and say that they don't deserve some of the same basic human rights?"
- She said the Foundation seeks to support groups helping prisoners experience "the right to learn, the right to dream, the right to seek knowledge, the right to imagine."
