Cherokee Editor America Meredith Wins National Rabkin Prize for Arts Journalism

By Cherokee 411 Staff

PORTLAND, Maine — America Meredith, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and publishing editor of First American Art Magazine, has been named one of eight recipients of the 2025 Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism, a national award honoring excellence and innovation in arts writing.

The prestigious award, presented by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, includes a $50,000 unrestricted prize recognizing Meredith’s ongoing contributions to amplifying Indigenous voices in contemporary art. Meredith said she plans to reinvest the funds into First American Art Magazine (FAAM), a publication dedicated to Native art and artists across the Americas.

“This is a completely unexpected honor,” Meredith said. “I focus on writing as clearly as possible to reach Native American audiences who may not have art education, and art audiences who may be unfamiliar with Indigenous issues. My goal is to connect all the diverse audiences for Native art with each other.”

Meredith joins a distinguished group of 2025 Rabkin honorees, including Tempestt Hazel, Jessica Lynne, Nicole Martinez, Brandy McDonnell, Eva Recinos, Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche/Choctaw), and J Wortham.

This is the second time a First American Art Magazine editor has received the award: Stacy Pratt, Ph.D. (Mvskoke), the magazine’s contributing editor, was honored in 2022.

Now in its ninth year, the Rabkin Prize has awarded nearly $4 million to arts journalists since its founding in 2017. Recipients are nominated by arts professionals nationwide and selected by an independent jury of writers and curators. The 2025 jurors included Hua Hsu, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and staff writer at The New Yorker; Joanne McNeil, author of Lurking: How a Person Became a User; and Jessica Bell Brown, executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The Rabkin Foundation also announced the launch of the Rabkin Interviews, a multimedia series of conversations and portraits featuring this year’s winners. The interviews, led by journalist Mary Louise Schumacher and photographed by Kevin J. Miyazaki, will be released weekly beginning September 10 on Substack, podcast platforms, and the foundation’s website.

Founded in Portland, Maine, the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation is an artist-endowed nonprofit that supports arts journalism and preserves the Rabkins’ legacy as artists and collectors.

Meredith, photographed at her home in Norman, Oklahoma, by Miyazaki for the Rabkin series, said she views the award as recognition not only of her work but also of the growing field of Indigenous arts journalism.

“Native art writing has always existed — but today, it’s thriving,” she said. “This award affirms that Indigenous perspectives belong at the center of art conversations, not the margins.”

For Cherokee 411 readers: America Meredith’s recognition marks another milestone for Cherokee leadership in the arts. Through First American Art Magazine, she continues to spotlight Native artists, writers, and educators, building a platform that connects tribal and global audiences in dialogue about Indigenous creativity.