Top of page

Program Teachers

Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative

Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative

The Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative is a Congressionally funded program named in honor of late Congressmen John R. Lewis (D-GA) and Amo Houghton (R-NY).

Guided by a belief in the power of music and civics, the Lewis-Houghton Initiative supports history, civics, and democracy learning at the secondary level using music and creative arts-based materials from the Library's digital collections.

Through this initiative, educational organizations may apply for awards to develop digitally-enabled learning initiatives for secondary education based on creative arts driven instruction, especially focused on music, in history, civics and democracy.

In 2023, the Library released a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) inviting proposals to support implementation of LHI projects in the United States and its territories. Six organizations received LHI grants in this inaugural round of funding:

  • City Lore is leading the "Harikatha to Hip Hop" project, which pairs high school teachers and teaching artists together to integrate primary sources related to culturally rooted music and dance into humanities curricula.
  • Culture Works received LHI funding for the "Time Out of Joint" project uses primary sources, Shakespeare, and original monologues to engage students in discussion about injustice, isolation, and civic engagement.
  • FableVision Studios whose multi-episode educational podcast - the "Library of Congress Mixtape" places archival recordings from the Library's collections into historical context and puts them into conversation with modern music-making.
  • Rock and Soul Forever Foundation is developing "The People's Playlist," a complete US History course using music - in its various forms - as a primary source.
  • Snow & Co. is working on "Music of Us," an online interactive tool for middle & high school students to explore our shared history as a nation through musical primary sources.
  • Songmasters whose "American Tapestry" site will deliver an online history and civics curriculum in which music plays a figural role.

The Lewis-Houghton Initiative currently offers subgrants to incorporate music, art, theater, poetry, and literature primary sources from the Library's collections into secondary education through the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Regional Program.

For more information and to stay tuned on future announcements, subscribe to the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog.