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-57- Office of Fellowships and Grants The Office of Fellowships and Grants contributes to Afro-American programming at the Smithsonian in a number of ways. Through its various grant programs, such as the Scholarly Studies Program, the Short Term Visitor Program, and the Workshop Program, the Office lends support to many educational, exhibition, and research activities. The Fellowship and Internship programs continue to bring scholars and students to the Institution to conduct research or participate in research projects on Afro-American subjects. In addition, the Office of Fellowships and Grants has been playing an increasingly significant role in establishing ties and networks with Afro-American scholars and students, persons particularly interested in Afro-American education, and related institutions such as the Historically Black Colleges and the United Negro College Fund. Office of Folklife Programs Since the origin of the Festival of American Folklife in 1967, the Office of Folklife Programs has been a leader in the presentation of Afro-American culture in the national museum. Hundreds of Black American musicians, story tellers, quilters, gospel singers, cooks, and exemplars of community knowledge from all parts of the U.S. and the Caribbean have demonstrated their artistry and told their stories to millions of Festival visitors. Research activities which underlay these presentations have generated considerable documentary collections of recorded sound, photographic images, and scholarly reports. The recent acquisition of the Folkways Records and Archives collections will significantly enhance the resources for this work. With visiting fellows using the collections for research, collaborative educational outreach activities, lecture series, and other public programming addressing the issues of cultural survival, the Office of Folklife Programs will continue to be strongly committed to scholarship on and presentation of Black American culture. Office of Interdisciplinary Studies The Office of Interdisciplinary Studies has had a long series of symposia which have been designed to appeal to specific ethnic and cultural groups. Recent programs of particular interest to AfroAmericans have included the May 1987 international symposium on "Constitutional Roots, Rights, and Responsibilities" (which treated slavery, the Founding Fathers, and post-Civil War amendments) and the March 1988 symposium co-sponsored by the Joint Center for Political Studies, "Afro-Americans and the Evolution of a Living Constitution." For the future the Office is developing educational materials in various media as byproducts of the March 1988 symposium, a May 1988 symposium on "Voluntarism and the Public Interest in American Society," a May 1988 "The People and the Constitution: a Continuing Dialogue" which will consider the history of minorities and the United Sates and the Constitution, educational events in connection with the 1989 and subsequent celebrations of Martin Luther King, Jr., holidays, and a conference studying the impact of the French Revolution in Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guyana.
