Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities

10/28/2026

Hey Baton Rouge, there's no excuse not to get out and enjoy a humanities program this week! Check out some of the events supported by LEH grants or presented by our partners!

You can find an LEH-supported event near you on our calendar at leh.org/news-events/events/

10/27/2026

October is Louisiana Folklife Month, which honors people or groups as Louisiana Tradition Bearers. Spearheaded by the Louisiana Folklife Commission and the Louisiana Folklore Society, and supported by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanties, you can learn more about this year's honorees at 64parishes.org/honoring-culture-bearers-3

2026 Folklife Month Honorees:
• Fred Johnson Jr., community activist and a steward of New Orleans social aid and pleasure club and second line traditions

• Rose Fisher, a long-time resident of LaSalle Parish and Tribal Elder of the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians

• Carl Parfait, a native of Dulac whose lifelong practice ensures that the art of trawl net making will continue to thrive for generations to come

• Ivy Billiot, a self-taught woodcarver who creates colorful, meticulously rendered fish, birds, reptiles, and other wildlife out of native Louisiana woods

• Dale Bordelon, who has preserved the skills and knowledge tied to Louisiana’s waterfowl traditions, crafting cane duck calls, cypress wood decoys, and cypress dugout pirogues

• Becky Thomas-Meziere, a traditional pine needle basket maker of Choctaw descent currently living in Natchitoches Parish

Each October, the Louisiana Folklife Program honors culture bearers keeping traditions alive.

10/26/2026

The Louisiana Book Festival is Saturday in Baton Rouge! Supported by an LEH Strategic Partnership Grant, the Louisiana Book Festival is a free, annual literary event that celebrates readers, writers, and books. The fest offers varied genres with a little bit of everything for folks of all reading tastes and levels. Check out the full schedule at louisianabookfestival.org.

While you're there, stop by the sponsor tent and say hello to our 64 Parishes team and snag a free copy of the magazine!

10/20/2026

Rougarou Fest is October 23-25 in Houma! Check out the schedule for the Rougarou Fest Folklife Village, supported by an LEH Rebirth Grant, where the rich traditions of South Louisiana come to life all weekend long.

Learn more: https://rougaroufest.org/folklife-village/

10/19/2026

It's Humanities Councils Week!

Across the U.S., 55 state and jurisdictional humanities councils like the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities are making space for people to gather around art, humanities, and culture—right in their own communities.

Here in Louisiana, the LEH has been bringing people together for 55 years. Today, strategic education and investment initiatives such as Prime Time, the Institute for Louisiana Culture and History, and our grants to local cultural organizations help us collectively preserve, protect, and celebrate our state's history and culture.

You can support that work at leh.org/donate

Follow Mellon Foundation and Federation of State Humanities Councils throughout the week to see the work of other councils.

10/15/2026

Join us for  a presentation with Jay Dardenne on Thursday, October 15 starting at 5:30pm. "Bayou Bijou: Movies Made in Louisiana," takes a look at fifty movies filmed in Louisiana, some dating back more than a century and some made possible by tax credits available for the past three decades. Join the Old Governor's Mansion for this look at the state's film history.

10/13/2026

Last call for nominations for the Bright Lights Awards! You've got just one week left to nominate in one of five categories:

• Lifetime Contributions
• Documentary Photographer of the Year
• Humanities Documentary Film of the Year
• Light Up for Literacy
• Best in Digital Humanities:

Help us recognize those who have made outstanding contributions to the understanding of the state’s culture and history. The deadline to make a nomination is Tuesday, October 20.

Learn more at

Nominate a Louisianan who has made outstanding contributions to the understanding of the state’s culture and history.

10/09/2026

The Laura Center for Creole Heritage, in partnership with the Laura Plantation Company, announces the Unending Arc of Freedom Tour.

Funded by an America 250 mini grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH), the tour will follow the trajectory of Guillaume Duparc, his descendants, and those they enslaved to explore the history of “liberty” from the War for Independence to the Civil War.

Guillaume Duparc was a French naval veteran of the American Revolution who served at the battles of Savannah, Pensacola, and Yorktown. He founded L’Habitation Duparc, today’s Laura Plantation in 1805.

The Unending Arc of Freedom tour will be offered at 2:00 PM every Friday in October. Reservations can be made at www.lauraplantation.com.

Funding for the 2026 Parish America 250 Mini Grant has been provided by the State of Louisiana and administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Louisiana Office of the Lieutenant Governor and the America 250 Louisiana State Commission.

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities

10/08/2026

October is Head Start Awareness Month. In 2016, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities embarked on this great adventure serving children and families. Today, Prime Time provides high-quality preschool in five parishes.

The LEH’s approach to education emphasizes access for all, whether for parents and caregivers through intergenerational family literacy programs, professional development for our state’s educators, or by providing high-quality Head Start services for our state’s youngest learners. Through Prime Time, we seek to create pathways for lifelong learning for every generation, from every walk of life, and in all 64 Louisiana parishes.

This summer, Prime Time helped bring educators across the state together. Read more about this professional development, and our approach to early childhood education, at https://leh.org/news/prime-time-brings-head-start-educators-together

LEH's education arm creates pathways for lifelong learning for every generation, from every walk of life, and in all 64 Louisiana parishes

10/07/2026

The Bright Lights Award for Best in Digital Humanities recognizes publicly accessible digital humanities projects produced in the previous two calendar years including websites, virtual exhibitions, podcasts, and other born-digital initiatives. Awarded every other year, our 2025 awardee was "A Closer Walk: New Orleans Music History, Block by Block."

Nominate this year's awardee at leh.org, and read about our last awarded project at 64parishes.org/music-in-the-streets

A Closer Walk, a curated website that maps and documents musical and cultural sites in New Orleans, the 2025 Best in Digital Humanities award winner.