On April 14, University of Richmond President Edward L. Ayers—scholar, prize-winning author, and “Nineteenth-Century Guy” on VFH Radio’s BackStory with the American History Guys—testified before the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on behalf of the work done by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the affiliated state humanities councils. Joining Ayers in testifying were filmmaker Ken Burns and writer Azar Nafisi, among others.

Ayers’s involvement with NEH dates back to 1985 and his days as an assistant professor when an NEH award supported his book, The Promise of the New South, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. A subsequent NEH award led to The Valley of the Shadow:  Two Communities in the American Civil War, a book, CD-ROM, and now-online resource that has welcomed millions of users, from elementary to graduate school, from the counties in Virginia and Pennsylvania where it was based to China and Latin America. That archive and research helped Ayers write In the Presence of Mine Enemies, which won the prestigious Bancroft Prize.

“The NEH works in a remarkable way, for it leverages local initiative, local curiosity, and local investment,” said Ayers, who from 2000-2004 reviewed proposals as a member of the Endowment’s National Council on the Humanities. “The multiplier effect is impressive, as the NEH works with state humanities councils to encourage collaboration among communities, to connect colleges, libraries, historical societies, and museums with one another and with the citizens who live around them.”

The Committee Chair, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, introduced Ayers as a “radio personality” because of his role in the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities’ nationally distributed BackStory public radio show. The program, which has been episodically broadcast by more than 200 stations in 38 states and the District of Columbia, recently passed the 1,000,000 mark for program downloads.

Closing his testimony, Ayers acknowledged that, “The United States faces great challenges, including those of budgets, and we all understand the need to examine how all those resources are used.” “Those of us in the humanities,” he continued, “do not ask for a very large portion of the nation’s support.  But we do ask that you help sustain one of the best investments our country has ever made:  in the past, present, and future understanding of who we are and where we live in the world.”