2022 Humanities Awards Recipients

The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is honored each year to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the understanding of Louisiana’s history and culture. For nearly 40 years, the LEH has honored these historians, filmmakers, photographers, poets, educators, folklorists, archivists, preservationists and more through its Humanities Awards. We are proud to announce on Tuesday December 13, 2021 this year’s recipients, who this year include our 2022 Humanist of the Year Ruby Bridges. Bridges, one of four students who desegregated New Orleans public schools in November 1960, has educated people around the world about the American civil rights movement through speaking, writing and by establishment of the Ruby Bridges Foundation. Bridges is one of 10 awardees. Also being recognized this year are Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson, the chair and James J. Parsons Endowed Professor of the department of geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University, and Kalamu ya Salaam, a poet, author, teacher, and activist from New Orleans, for their Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities, as well as Champion of Culture John Barbry, a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana who has dedicated his life to the promotion and preservation of Native folkways. Humanities Book of the Year: “Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood” by Fatima Shaik; Humanities Documentary Film of the Year: “The Neutral Ground” directed by C. J. Hunt and produced by Darcy McKinnon; Museum Exhibition of the Year: Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience’s Permanent Exhibition and Light Up for Literacy: Jeannine Pasini Beekman and Tracy Cunningham.