Under the auspices of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and funded by the Ford Foundation and The JPB Foundation, this report seeks to elevate emerging ideas, research, observations, and questions on the critically important issues of equitable development, social justice, and the practice of preservation.

The Action Fund sponsors the Sites of Enslavement Initiative, which is re-examining interpretation and issues related to historic sites with histories of slavery, not just at National Trust historic sites but across the country.

This includes the Plantation Weddings Symposium, which brought together staff from historic sites with histories of slavery, wedding and events industry leaders, organizers for racial justice, academics, descendants of slavery, and public historians to critically discuss the issue of plantation weddings and develop productive solutions.

The 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education compiled cases from five communities across the South, East, and Midwest to desegregate American schools. The Action Fund is working with federal and local partners to join the stories of these places with those already being told at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas.

The Chesapeake Mapping Initiative is intended to ensure that places important to African Americans are better represented in historic preservation and land conservation priorities in the Chesapeake Bay region, and ultimately that more of these places are recognized and protected. It will also lay the groundwork for future mapping efforts for African American historic places by assessing the effectiveness of different project approaches.

The story of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till Mobley galvanized the nation and spurred a nationwide movement for civil rights. The National Trust has joined with local and national partners to document and preserve the crucial history of the sites connected with Emmett Till’s murder, his extended visitation and open casket funeral, and the subsequent trial in which two of his murderers were acquitted.

From sites of enslavement and self-emancipation, to homes and spaces of artists, musicians, scholars, athletes, and Civil Rights leaders, the African American story is a part of communities large and small. Explore the places—Nina Simone’s Childhood Home, Shockoe Bottom, John and Alice Coltrane Home, and more—where the National Trust has engaged through the Action Fund.

Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck, built state-of-the art schools for African American children across the South in the early 20th century. The National Trust is providing technical assistance, grants, workshops, and conferences to help save these icons of progressive architecture for community use.

The Action Fund works closely with the National Trust’s HOPE (Hands-On Preservation Experience) Crew, over nine projects that include the John and Alice Coltrane Home and Nina Simone’s Childhood Home. In addition, three HBCUs, including Morgan State University, participated in our Preservation Practicum.

The Action Fund has been involved in projects that try to tell the stories of our National Trust Historic Sites in creative, different ways, such as playwright Ifa Bayeza’s work about jazz musician Bunk Johnson at The Shadows in Louisiana and Makers in the Mansion at Woodlawn.

Since 2018, the Action Fund has supported a Fellows program with undergraduate and graduate students, emerging professionals, scholars, creatives, and experts in order to tell those stories in new and innovative ways.