Mike Segal: Cliff Stearns is no Jesse Helms

Concerning the latest dust up between Cliff Stearns and the NEA over art funding, Cliff Stearns is no Jesse Helms. While Helms was bashing the NEA for purely political purposes, he was at the same time directing NEA funding to North Carolina’s Artist in the Schools Program.

In the 1980’s when Helm’s created the art censorship movement in the U.S.

Senate, he also coordinated his efforts with the North Carolina Arts Council, the PTA and school boards in North Carolina to make certain that the NEA gave a larger share of funding to the North Carolina Art Council to fund an artist in the schools program statewide.

North Carolina is a mostly rural state which has very impoverished counties in the Appalachian region. Eleven Appalachian counties were organized into an umbrella organization, The Mountain Arts Council, which brought art education to every school in the region.

At the same time Helms was bashing the NEA with one hand, he was using his

leverage to bring art funding to North Carolina that hit the target of educating children and enriching the art culture in general especially in the rural counties.

Today North Carolina has developed a state arts council which serves the rural counties in a very productive way, something that the State of Florida has failed at miserably. There are no county art councils in the Big Bend area of Florida except for Madison County, which does not allow these small counties to compete with the big cities for funding.

While Cliff Stearns is quick to pick up the old NEA debate that Jesse Helms started in the 1980’s to serve his own political purposes, Stearns has done nothing helpful to promote the arts in Florida. Cliff Stearns is no Jesse Helms.

Mike Segal,

Chiefland