In March of this year, the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany, New York found out that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) had cancelled a $250,000 grant that had already been awarded. The museum sued the Federal government because it said that the grant was illegally withdrawn because of racial and viewpoint bias by the Trump Administration. The Federal government said that the “NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in furtherance of the President’s priorities.” In the lawsuit, the Center argues that the NEH “was to ensure that what is now sometimes short-handed as ‘DEI’ and branded by Defendants as illegal and undesirable, would be central to NEH’s mission … This mandate was carried out for 60 years, under Democratic and Republican administrators until upended this past Inauguration Day.”
On October 1, 2026 the Center received an email from the NEH saying that the grant is being reinstated.
The Center is located in the house of Black abolitionists Harriet and Stephen Myers. The lawsuit said that the Center “interprets the Underground Railroad movement as a civil rights movement propelled toward social and racial justice … and the people at its center are a source of pride and lessons for contemporary struggles for equality and opportunity.” Paul Stewart, the spokesperson for the Center, said “The government’s attorney is throwing in the towel.” Stewart added “I’m glad we can return to this process and move forward …. I do feel it’s a victory for us, a victory for our project … It’s something we can crow about for at least a little while.”
The Center says that the money is to build a visitor center for which they have already raised millions of dollars from the New York State Government and private sources. The Federal grant opened up several matching grants from other sources.
Stewart said that the March cancellation “also highlights some of the ridiculousness of some of the decisions that have been made on the part of the Trump administration.”
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