President Biden names minority heads for arts and humanities

The President has nominated Maria Rosario Jackson to chair the National Endowment for the Arts.

Dr Jackson, who teaches at the University of Arizona, wrote recently: ‘As the daughter of an African American man and a Mexican immigrant woman, I watched my parents resort to the arts and to the particular expressions of their respective cultures because they feared that without intentional exposure to Black and Brown people who could express their fullest humanity, my brother and I might actually believe the narratives that they were sure we were confronting daily.’

Mr Biden has also named Shelly Lowe, head of the Harvard University Native American Program, to chair the Humanities panel.

NEA distributes up yo $180 million in arts funding.