“In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social
justice—the only path that will lead us to a permanent bettering of our civilization, the path that
our children must tread and their children must tread, the path of faith, the path of hope and
the path of love toward our fellow man.”

So concluded the future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the end of a campaign speech
on the economy made in Detroit, MI on October 2, 1932. With the unemployment rate in the
United States nearing 25%, Roosevelt pitched social justice as a strategy for economic recovery
and growth. He argued for the federal government’s essential role in addressing the root causes
of poverty and creating the conditions necessary for shared prosperity. He spoke about public
health access, workers’ compensation insurance, and social security programs as systemic
interventions to restore fairness and morality to the economy and create a rising tide that lifts
all boats.

Roosevelt’s collectivist philosophy earned him the label of “radical” in some circles, but the New Deal was hugely popular and the stability and advances it instituted in terms of personal and national economic security, labor organizing, home ownership, infrastructure and utilities development, and national parks, were widespread and have proven to be long-lasting.

The arts were central to the New Deal’s social justice-oriented approach to economic development. The New Deal put artists to work creating murals, paintings, and other public art
to fill post offices, schools, and government buildings across the country. Federal arts programs
combined unemployment relief for the creative sector with increased access to the arts and
improved quality of life. Importantly, the programs involved a diversity of artists working in a
variety of media, styles, and customs—although the programs did not afford artists of color all
the same opportunities as their white counterparts. New Deal programs also paid artists
fairly— estimated at $3,000 – $4,000 per month in today’s money (25% above New Mexico’s
2023 median income).

The Gallup New Deal Art Virtual Museum, launched by gallupARTS on March 29, 2025, explores the artistic legacy of the New Deal. The pieces in Gallup and McKinley County’s New Deal art collection on display in the Virtual Museum are as meaningful today as they were at the time of their making almost 100 years ago: they remind us of our history, provide insights into the evolution of artistic and cultural traditions, and raise issues of representation and cross-cultural exchange. By bringing them to light, the Virtual Museum continues the work of the New Deal, leveraging public art to advance social justice and the empathy and understanding it requires. The Museum also considers the value of artists’ labor, provoking reflection on matters of systemic exploitation and equity within the current regional arts market.

Perhaps because it promotes historical memory, the Virtual Museum is now a casualty of the
current administration’s drastic overhaul of the federal government—one that seeks to reverse
the ethos of the New Deal. In fact, President Trump is now proposing to eliminate essentially all
federal support for arts and culture. gallupARTS is hardly immune in this regard. Funding
committed to the Virtual Museum by the National Endowment for the Humanities since 2018
was abruptly and unlawfully terminated by DOGE at the beginning of April.

But, to paraphrase FDR, never fear. gallupARTS’ commitment to stewarding our community’s
artistic heritage and to strengthening our society and economy by supporting local artists and
promoting the arts remains unabated.