In this installment of the AGMAzine Archive Series, we look back at the Fall 1981 issue of AGMAzine, which documented nationwide rallies organized that summer in response to federal arts funding cuts and threats to the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading it today, the similarities to the current moment are pretty hard to miss.
Artists, unions, and cultural organizations across the country mobilized to defend both the arts and the livelihoods connected to them. AGMA participated in multiple rallies and officially endorsed the major New York City demonstration at Lincoln Center, a three-and-a-half-hour event where AGMA leadership spoke and AGMA members performed alongside fellow artists and advocates. Long before social media or online petitions existed, supporters handwrote letters to elected officials on-site, sealed them by hand, and gathered more than 5,000 petition signatures in real time.
At the rally, AGMA President Gene Boucher addressed the crowd with a warning that still resonates more than 40 years later: “We worry for our jobs, of course, but we worry also about a deeper loss of morale, if this country takes such an obvious step backward in disguise of ‘economy.’”
“If it is true that these are trying, uncertain times, and I believe they are, then more than ever we need the heart, spirit, and dignity that the arts bring to our lives,” he continued. “The Federal Government must not back away from its commitment. Public support for the arts must continue thoroughly, consistently, and PERMANENTLY!”
The issue is a reminder that artists have had to repeatedly organize, speak out, and fight for arts funding across generations. In AGMA’s 90th year, these pages feel strikingly familiar, right?