Indiana Humanities seeks applications for Wilma Gibbs Moore Fellowships

Fellowships support new research on racial injustice and the responses of Black Hoosiers

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Seeking to engage the power of the humanities in the nation’s work for racial justice, Indiana Humanities is supporting fellowships for new research that explores anti-Black racial injustice and structural racism in Indiana and that considers how Black Hoosiers have responded.  

Named for a former Indiana Historical Society archivist and librarian who served as one of Indiana’s preeminent scholars of African American history, Wilma Gibbs Moore Fellowships of $5,000 will support humanities scholars as they conduct new research on anti-Black racism in Indiana.   

“We’re excited to continue offering the Wilma Gibbs Moore Fellowships as a way of utilizing the humanities to elevate and provide discussion around the Black experience in Indiana,” said George Hanlin, Indiana Humanities director of grants. “Too often this history goes unnoticed and unrecognized, but the research that comes from our fellows will provide unique opportunities for dialogue and discussion.”

The Wilma Gibbs Moore Fellowships are open to individual researchers or research teams who can demonstrate their credibility as researchers and show how their proposed topic aligns to the fellowship’s goals. Researchers do not need to be based in Indiana but must show how their research relates significantly to Indiana. 

Past projects include research into the long history of Indianapolis’ discriminatory housing practices through oral histories, as well as research about the experiences and remembrances of antebellum Black Hoosier women.

Proposals will be welcomed from across the fields of humanities inquiry, including but not limited to history, literature, philosophy, cultural studies, religious studies, art history, folklore, ethnomusicology and gender studies, as well as humanistic social sciences such as political science, sociology and anthropology. An advisory panel of esteemed humanities scholars will review the proposals.  

Fellowship applications will open on Feb. 1, 2023, and will be due by March 31, 2023. Applicants will be notified of fellowship awards in May, with an expectation that the fellowship work will be completed by June 2024.  

For more details about the fellowship, its aims and requirements, and to access the fellowship application, go to the Wilma Gibbs Moore Fellowship page.