Ohio Humanities

The year is 1864, and Americans are at war over political differences. The President has declared martial law, suspended civil liberties, and imprisoned tens of thousands of people without trial. Many citizens are so angry at President Lincoln that they are willing to conspire with the Confederates to violently overthrow the governments of several states, an effort that will eventually lead to Lincoln's assassination. It's a little-known story from our past that has much to teach us about the challenges that bedevil our country right now. Listen to The Copperhead Conspiracy at the link in our bio or wherever you get your podcasts!

🚀 We’re VERY excited to officially announce the #launch of Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison On Wednesday, February 18, 2026. This is a yearlong, statewide celebration honoring the life, literature, and legacy of #ToniMorrison, Lorain, Ohio native and the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. 🔵 ATTEND THE KICKOFF The statewide kickoff will be held Wednesday, February 18 at 5pm in Columbus and will feature acclaimed writers @nifmuhammad and #NamwaliSerpell exploring Morrison’s work, her enduring influence, and what it means to read her in this moment. Join virtually by registering for the livestream. 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 (🔗Link in bio) /e/beloved-ohio-celebrates-toni-morrison-statewide-virtual-kickoff-event-tickets-1980239458527 🔵 IF YOU’RE IN CLEVELAND Join us in person on Wednesday, February 18 at @KaramuHouse . At 7pm we will hold our annual Toni Morrison reading and open mic during which attendees can share their favorite readings from Morrison’s work. You can also arrive early at 5pm to watch the livestream of the statewide kickoff with fellow readers and writers. 𝗥𝗦𝗩𝗣 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗸𝗶𝗰𝗸-𝗼𝗳𝗳 (🔗Link in bio) /events-programs/ohio-celebrates-toni-morrison-kickoff-watch-party-birthday-reading 🔵 CHECK OUT EVENTS Head to the website to see the first wave of events planned across the state. 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱 (🔗Link in bio) /events/ 🔵 FOLLOW ALONG Subscribe to our newsletter for program updates and ways to get involved, including volunteer opportunities. Follow Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison on Instagram @ohiocelebratesmorrison and on Facebook. 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸, 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺, 𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗿 (🔗Link in bio) https://linktr.ee/ohiocelebratestonimorrison 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀? Email Project Manager Britt Lovett: [email protected]

The fourth volume of Lumen Magazine is out now! Inside, you will learn about a story of Holocaust survival that cascades through generations. You will meet 87-year-old artist, community leader and educator Bing Davis alongside Columbus poet, essayist and cultural critic @nifmuhammad . You will read first-person accounts of a 9-11 hero, a grieving mother and a physician working with Alzheimer’s patients. We chose this issue's theme, memory, more than a year ago, before we could have imagined our current challenges. Yet the theme is perfect for this moment. Recording our collective stories—in documentaries, exhibitions, podcasts and publications like Lumen—helps us preserve our past and face the future. Explore the digital copy today at ohiohumanities.org/lumen or at the link in our bio.

Culture lives here. Today, Ohio Humanities is launching #FundCultureHere — a statewide advocacy campaign supporting federal funding for state humanities councils and the communities they serve. Across Ohio, humanities funding supports museums, libraries, archives, documentaries, oral history projects, festivals, educational programs, literacy initiatives, historic preservation efforts, and cultural organizations in all 88 counties. Congress appropriated funding for state humanities councils, but Ohio communities still need those funds released — and support for FY27 funding will soon be under consideration in Congress. We’re asking Ohioans to contact their members of Congress — especially Senator Jon Husted — and urge support for: • FULL FY27 funding for state humanities councils • the release of ALL congressionally appropriated NEH funding intended for Ohio communities Culture matters here. History matters here. Community matters here. Visit the link in bio to take action. #FundCultureHere #OhioHumanities #HumanitiesMatter #OhioCulture

This Sunday the Rust Belt Humanities Lab is partnering with the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, @literarycleveland , @ohiohumanities , and @ohiocelebratesmorrison for a discussion of the film adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved! Vera Camden, Emerita Professor of English at Kent State University and Supervising and Training Analyst at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, will lead our discussion. See you there! Register here: /events/analytic-flicks-eyeswideshut-eh484-cesrn @katie.trostel @matt.weinkam @beelovett

Each month for the next year, the @clereviewbooks and @rustbeltlab will publish an essay as a part of @ohiocelebratesmorrison --a statewide project led by @literarycleveland and in partnership with @ohiohumanities . This month's piece is entitled, "Water’s Perfect Memory: What Wetlands Can Teach Us About Rebuilding the Rust Belt" and was penned by the co-founder of @rustbeltfibershed , Jess Boeke. It's a meditation on the region's potential as it is encapsulated by the very contours of our natural world right here in the Rust Belt--from the vastness of the marks left behind by glacial activity, to the small-ness of a spore of bluefern. Read this absolutely beautiful piece here: /waters-perfect-memory-what-wetlands-can-teach-us-about-rebuilding-the-rust-belt/ "Spores of bluefern growing in the hollows along the riverbank float toward the water in silver-blue lines hard to see unless you are in or near them, lying right at the river’s edge when the sunshots are low and drained. Often they are mistook for insects — but they are seeds in which the whole generation sleeps confident of a future. And for a moment it is easy to believe each one has one — will become all of what is contained in the spore: will live out its days as planned. This moment of certainty lasts no longer than that; longer, perhaps, than the spore itself." —Toni Morrison, Beloved ... "To help us answer this question [of regional potential], who better to guide us than Toni Morrison? She grew up on the lip of Lake Erie in Lorain, Ohio in this same glacially-shaped, industrially-scarred landscape in which we live. She wrote about its waters, its divisions, and its people carrying futures inside of them towards freedom. To consider the potential of this region through Morrison’s language is more than just a literary exercise; it can help us continue to construct the story of our place. Water is what moves this story forward. It has always been the carrier character in this Great Lakes region. It is the flow that moves the spores that hold the future."

We're partnering with the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center for a discussion of the film adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved as a part of @ohiocelebratesmorrison ! Vera Camden, Emerita Professor of English at @kentstate and Supervising and Training Analyst at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center will lead our discussion. See you there!

500 books. 500 people. Right in the middle of @westsidemarket We showed up. You showed up. And just like that, stories found their way into people’s hands. Thank you to everyone who stopped, reached, and took a piece of Toni Morrison with you. And thank you to the joyful volunteers and partners who made it possible. @ohiocelebratesmorrison @literarycleveland @ohiohumanities @clevelandpubliclibrary @rustbeltlab Every time her words reach someone new or welcomes someone back, our community grows. 🧡

Free giveaway of Toni Morrison books in Cleveland at the West Side Market tomorrow, April 18 from 10am-2pm while supplies last! Literary Cleveland is teaming up with the Cleveland Public Library and the Rust Belt Humanities Lab to give away 500 books thanks to sponsorship from Vintage Books and Penguin Random House. This is part of our yearlong Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison program. Spread the word! See you there! #tonimorrison #free #freebooks #community #ohio

🎉 JOIN US! 13 DAYS UNTIL the next FREE Toni Morrison book club meeting! (Sunday, April 26, 7PM, via Zoom) 𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗔𝗣: All through 2026, we’re reading Toni Morrison’s novels together in historical order—from A Mercy (set in the 1680s) all the way to God Help the Child—so we can sit with how her stories trace American history, memory, and lived experience. 𝗔𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗟 𝟮𝟲 𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗫𝗧𝗥𝗔 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟: Because 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗙𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗢𝗥 𝗛𝗢𝗡𝗢𝗥𝗘́𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘 𝗝𝗘𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗦 @honoree_jeffers joins us to discuss BELOVED!! She’s a Morrison enthusiast / award-winning poet / novelist / author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois (an Oprah’s Book Club pick and National Book Award–longlisted novel), and The Age of Phillis (winner of the NAACP Image Award). Her work traces Black history, lineage, and memory across generations. 👉🏽 𝗥𝗘𝗚𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗢𝗪 (link in bio) & join us on April 26.
https://linktr.ee/ohiocelebratestonimorrison 𝗡𝗢 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦: Come to one session or stay with us all year. However you show up, it’s about reading, reflecting, and being in community around this work. 🔖 Tag a friend you’d love to read these books with

Y’all 😃 the merch store is LIVE!! /collections/beloved-ohio-celebrates-toni-morrison (link in bio) 🔗 We’re excited to introduce our official Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison collection, inspired by the work and legacy of Toni Morrison. 🛍️ Every purchase helps sustain this work, with $7 from each item going directly to support community-based events across Ohio. Wear it. Share it. Support what we’re growing in communities across Ohio and globally. 👉🏽 Shop the collection 👉🏽 Learn more at /collections/beloved-ohio-celebrates-toni-morrison (link in bio) 🔗

Happy April, Beloved. Spring is settling in 🙏🏽 Longer days, more light, a little more room to think and create. Across #Ohio, that shift is showing up in how people are gathering, reading, sharing, and engaging with the work of Toni Morrison! ❤️‍🔥 Still carrying the momentum of a powerful March, including our virtual book club conversation with Imani Perry @imaniperry . (If you missed it, you can still join us ~ there’s room for you in the conversation.) 📘 This month, we turn to BELOVED. We’re honored to welcome Professor Honorée Fanonne Jeffers @honoree_jeffers for our April discussion, alongside Dr. Brenda R. Smith. This is one you won’t want to miss. 🛍️ Our online store is now live. The Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison collection features pieces inspired by Morrison’s words and her Ohio roots. Every purchase gives back, with $7 from each item supporting community-based events across the state. 📍 Swipe. You’ll find April events happening across Ohio. Thank you for continuing to read, gather, and build this moment together. Full list of events at: ohiocelebratestonimorrison.org/events. Link in bio.