Pop Smart - National Black Arts Festival receives NEA grant
The National Black Arts Festival has just received a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to participate in the Big Read, a federal reading program initiated by the NEA to encourage reading in American culture.
Big Read celebrations, nationwide from January to June 2008, will focus on 16 classic novels, out of which the NBAF will promote Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God throughout communities in metro Atlanta. The NBAF hosts author Alice Walker for the 2008 festival, who was so moved by Hurston’s novel she traveled to Eatonville, Fla., to purchase a gravestone for Hurston’s unmarked grave.
To learn more about NBAF’s Big Read initiative and to get a full listing of activities, visit here.