Opera is notably known for producing works that represent stories and experiences from White, Euro-centric, and Western perspectives. Recently, that narrative has begun to change. This summer, many new productions are premiering written by Black composers, featuring Black stories. 

Hundreds of high school students at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts staged a sit-in protest in favor of retaining LaGuardia’s historically arts focused curriculum rather than shifting towards stricter academic requirements.

The new ACLC Fellowship is a one-year professional development program for emerging and mid-career arts leaders of color that is advancing approaches to arts & culture management towards greater racial and cultural equity around the Great Lakes. 

Americans for the Arts announces a new publication, the Teaching Artist Companion to Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change. The Companion supports artists who work with youth in K–12 programs in and out of school and the institutional leaders who support their work, but also informs funders, researchers, evaluators, and policy makers in the field of creative youth development.

Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce the release of the 2018 Profile of Local Arts Agencies, its latest research on the local arts agency field tracking budget trends, sources of revenues, partnerships, community impact programs, policies, programs, and more.

Americans for the Arts announces today that theater artist and cultural organizer Mark Valdez is the recipient of the 2019 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities. The $65,000 award will support him in advancing his work in community-based theater during the fellowship year. 

Business leaders convene to discuss how the arts can align diversity, equity, and inclusion activities to core business strategies and how businesses can creatively develop and retain diverse talent.

Public Art Bootcamp, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s award program, is the subject of the publication Capacity Building for Racial Equity in Public Art, which illustrates how public art administrators can shift the field to be more inclusive and effect change by intentionally serving artists from under-represented and under-invested communities. 

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, one of the city’s major museums, recently expanded beyond its main gallery in the South Boston Seaport District. The new Watershed building represents a turning point in Boston’s history as East Boston’s first major arts destination.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Student Art Exhibit Program, which has been in operation since 2004, regularly features a rotating collection of visual art created by both American and international students. On May 4, the program debuted an exhibit called “Total Tolerance.” The exhibit includes various photos, paintings, and poetry by winners of the 2018 YoungArts’ National Arts Competition, a yearly competition for young artists ages 15-18.

A Monument to Maggie tells the story of the development and unveiling of a monument to civil rights hero Maggie L. Walker, which was unveiled after nearly 20 years of efforts led by community and political leaders to help tell another part of Richmond's history.

Rhodessa Jones is an actress, writer, singer, and teacher, and the founder and director of the award-winning Medea Project, a theater program designed to use the arts to reduce the number of women returning to prison.

As founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and an acclaimed public interest lawyer, Bryan Stevenson has dedicated his career to fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination. In addition to his work in the courtroom, Stevenson is helping shepherd powerful works of public art like the Memorial to Peace and Justice, which will feature the names of more than 4,000 victims of lynching.

Americans for the Arts releases a statement in response to the executive order signed by President Trump that denies entrance into the U.S. by immigrant and non-immigrant visitors from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Luc was only 7 years old when his world went dark and he suddenly became blind. The now 13 year-old recalls feeling left out when his family went to an art museum because he was unable to share in his family’s aesthetic and visual experiences.

“It made me feel like an outsider,” he said.

In Greenville, Calif.—population 1,200—the local junior/senior high school has not been able to purchase new books since the 1990s. But all that is changing, thanks to an online campaign that's gone viral.

Americans for the Arts enthusiastically releases our new Statement on Cultural Equity —the culmination of a year of work and consultation with members, advisory council members, stakeholders in the arts field, board, staff, and partners throughout the nonprofit sector. During the organization’s last strategic planning process in 2014, the Americans for the Arts board and staff collectively identified a need for stronger, more intentional work in the area of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Poet Laureate of San Antonio Laurie Ann Guerrero has added another title to her name: Literary Arts Director/Writer-in-Residence at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. The Center cultivates, promotes, and preserves traditional and contemporary Chicano, Latino, and Native American arts and culture through multidisciplinary programming, and is one of the largest community-based organizations in the US. 

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s first nationwide survey to assess the gender and ethnic diversity of American art museum staffs reveals a significant movement towards gender equality within the art museum world. In partnership with the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the survey provides the first statistical baseline against which progress in the museum field can be measured.

Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh is making good on a campaign promise to increase focus on culture and the arts in the city. Walsh will reveal details of an 18-month initiative, spearheaded by new chief of arts and culture Julie Burros, which will bring city officials into the streets to meet with artists and cultural professionals. Through the initiative, called “Boston Creates,” information will be collected and analyzed for the city to then formulate a plan of action to address the issues cultural leaders and artists are facing.