Evolving Programs, Enduring Mission
December 27, 2025
The South Dakota Humanities Council – originally known as the South Dakota Committee on the Humanities – was founded in 1972 in response to an act of Congress. Today’s SDHC began as an advisory group accompanied by a Council of Humanists that sought to “bridge the gap between its Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.” Supported by a $125,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Committee began its endeavors through an adult education program whose theme was “Indian and Non-Indian: Cultural Contributions for a Better South Dakota.”
During its first year in existence, the South Dakota Council on the Humanities received 50 program proposals involving 12,760 people. Of those proposals, 9 programs were funded totaling $41,000, reaching an untold number of people. Now, 44 years later, SDHC continues that mission – to reach as many people as possible – in an effort to fulfill one of the core goals of the nonprofit organization: to provide “a perspective and understanding of human thought, human relations, human values, history, culture, and ideas” and “bring the spirit of the humanities to public policy in the state” by “bringing the teacher-humanist into dialogue with the adult public on current policy issues.” While the shaping of discourse with the adult public regarding public policy remains an important aspect of SDHC programming, efforts have been made across the years to expand that impact, growing to also promote the education and awareness of South Dakotans across the lifespan.
The mission of the South Dakota Humanities Council is threefold: to celebrate literature, promote civil conversation, and tell the stories that define our state. Encompassed within that mission is programming aimed at increasing literacy rates, promoting the education of youth as well as adults, and providing a platform on which the diverse cultural stories at the very core of the state’s identity can be shared.
SDHC’s programming efforts have expanded considerably since its founding in 1972, growing from efforts at civic education and conversations aimed at the shaping of public policy to the distribution of over 100,000 free books distributed to third grade students across the state and the development of an annual Festival of Books, designed to bring readers and writers together to celebrate literature, literacy, and all things South Dakota. SDHC has helped to bring numerous notable Americans into the state’s classrooms and venues over the years – including Maya Angelou, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Vine Deloria, Jr., Joy Harjo, Madeleine Albright, Melinda Gates, and John Grisham – and aims to continue bringing national scholars to the state while highlighting and celebrating those scholars and leaders that South Dakota is proud to call their own.
With significant cuts to its federal funding in early 2025, SDHC has experienced a need to alter much of its programming in the past year but is revamping and reinvigorating its efforts to continue fulfilling the vision expressed during its founding over 40 years ago.
SDHC hopes all citizens will join in on this adventurous journey into the future; one in which literature is celebrated, civil conversation is promoted, and the stories that define South Dakota continue to be told.
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