$825K in COVID funds paid ‘unemployed oral historians’ to push ‘anti-racism’ and ‘Latinx history’

As businesses still struggle with the effects of government-ordered COVID-19 lockdowns, $825,000 in federal COVID relief funds was used to pay “unemployed oral historians” to promote “anti-racism” political activism and “Latinx history,” Fox News reports.

Under President Joe Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” federal COVID relief funds are supposed to provide supplemental funds to businesses still reeling from lockdowns, lost income and lockdown-related supply chain issues.

But funds doled out by the National Endowment for the Humanities is being used to pay for what amounts to political activism.

“The Oral History Association, for instance, received $825,000 in ARP funds for a grant-making project titled, ‘Diversifying Oral History Practice: A Fellowship Program for Under/Unemployed Oral Historians,’ which provided eleven year-long fellowships of $60,000 each for oral historians ‘from communities which have been historically marginalized in the field,’ such as ‘Indigenous peoples, people of color, people with disabilities, and working class people,’” Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar reports.

None of the $60,000 grants appear to go any business shut down, or to anyone with employees.

“Colette Denali Montoya-Sloan, a queer, Indigenous librarian/archivist, received a $60,000 grant to develop an oral history of the “collective emotional, intellectual, and spiritual experience of creating” the new Visitor Contact Station at the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in northern Maine,” Chasmar reports.

Chasmar reports another $60,000 grant went to “Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Castle, a ‘Shawnee-ancestored anti-racist educator,’ to create ‘A Collaborative Oral History of the Fight Against Mineral and Uranium Mining in the Black Hills, the Origins of the Global Indigenous Movement, and the Ongoing Struggle to Protect the People who Protect Mother Earth.’”

That comes as environmentalists fight efforts in Congress to mine more uranium in the U.S. to reduce dependence on imported Russian uranium.

It appears to be part of a larger effort by liberals to weaponize federal spending to promote radical political agendas.

“Months after the ARP passed, Democrats voted against preventing federal funds from being used to promote Critical Race Theory in schools. They’re doing everything they can to use hard-earned tax dollars to spread Critical Race Theory,” the National Republican Senate Committee notes.

“It is unconscionable for the federal government to take nearly a million dollars from hard-working taxpayers to have the NEH hand that money to ‘marginalized… Under/Unemployed Oral Historians,’” Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “No one was willing to voluntarily pay for these oral historians, so there is no reason for federal bureaucrats to decide this is a better use of money than allowing taxpayers to keep it to pay for the rising cost of gas, rent, and groceries.”

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AmericanActionNews.com

Michael Brigham

Michael Brigham has written for American Action News since the summer of 2019. His areas of expertise include foreign affairs, government, and politics, but regardless of the subject matter, he has a nose and an insatiable appetite for news. In his free time, he enjoys reading nonfiction, watching a mix of comedies and true crime documentaries, and spending time away from the swamp hiking in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.