Alliance for Cultural Democracy Records

Alliance for Cultural Democracy (ACD) was an activist arts organization active in the 1980s and 1990s. ACD began in December 1976 as the Neighborhood Arts Programs National Organizing Committee (NAPNOC). The founding meeting was held at the United Auto Workers' Family Education Center in Black Lake, Michigan, in December 1976, bringing together two dozen community arts activists and allies from all over the country, many of whom had been supported through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act(CETA). The organizers began publishing a newsletter, NAPNOC Notes, to maintain communication and dialogue. The organization was funded by the Department of Labor from 1977 through 1979. It grew to include over 150 cultural groups and many cultural workers based in urban, suburban, and rural settings, including muralists, theater people, videographers, craftspeople, musicians, photographers, publishers, organizers, and activists. As federal funding waned, the goals and definition of the organization evolved to encompass a broader vision of what became known as "cultural democracy", the idea that cultural, racial, gender, national, ethnic, and other communities in global society had the right to exert their identities, practices, and arts through cultural, community, and aesthetic expressions at all levels. In 1983 the group changed its name to the Alliance for Cultural Democracy and NAPNOC Notes became Cultural Democracy, which was published on a mostly quarterly basis. Its most successful national campaigns were its efforts to promote a "Cultural Bill of Rights," as well as an effort to create an alternative to the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial. This campaign was inspired by the work of Indigenous and other BIPOC organizations in the U.S. and Latin America, and brought together a vast array of political, cultural, and community groups to counter the dominant culture's narrative of the "discovery of the New World" with one of resistance by Indigenous and other communities. ACD members played important roles in infusing cultural activism into organizing efforts around anti-gentrification and Central American solidarity, and also established ties with cultural activists in other countries. In the later 1980s and early 1990s, changing funding patterns for the arts, along with the urgency of the Gulf War and other national and international issues redirected much of ACD members' energy. Additionally, the counter-quincentennial work raised concerns about how the organization addressed LGBTQ+ and BIPOC issues, and several BIPOC Board members resigned. Additionally, after the death of one of the key Board members in 1993 the organization began to slowly dissolve, formally ending around 1996.

Source: This historical note is based on the description of NAPNOC and ACD provided by the donors.