After discussions with members of the Historic Anacostia community, the goal of this initiative was refined to include the preservation of an existing structure owned by a community organization called Children of Mine which provides numerous resources to youth within historic Anacostia. This session highlights aspects of phase 1 of the project which includes a survey of the historic building, material testing, and stabilization. Continuation of the project will include rehabilitation of the historic structure to be used as a STEM center for children within the community. Building upon this effort, volunteers and residents throughout the community will be able to learn preservation tools and resources that can be implemented on their own historic homes.

Sponsored by Indow, with in-kind donations from Benjamin Moore.

Please join the National Trust’s easement program staff for the popular Easement Roundtable, an event for staff, attorneys, and volunteers of easement-holding organizations. This session provides an opportunity for those who manage preservation easements for government agencies and non-profit organizations to discuss pressing and emerging issues in preservation easements. Some prior experience with preservation easements is strongly encouraged, but not required. Breakout rooms will be designed to allow smaller group conversations on specific easement related topics.

This programming is free but conference registration is required. When registering, select the option for attending only one or more special sessions. Free events are also included in your registration when you register for the full conference.

Preservation voices need to be heard on Capitol Hill. Join with others from your state to advocate online for historic preservation priorities with your federal delegation. Information about these priorities will be provided by the National Trust’s Government Relations office prior to the conference.

When you register for the conference, be sure to indicate your interest and a person from your state will be in contact with you shortly! The last day to “register” for this part of the conference is Monday, October 25. Questions? Email hstark@savingplaces.org.

Re-imagining International Sites of Enslavement (RISE) is a knowledge-sharing programme that brings together managers of sites around the Atlantic with a connection to the slave trade. The programme is a collaboration between INTO and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In this session practitioners working at INTO member sites are invited to share their experience of interpreting the history of slavery with their peers. The session is by invitation only

Join Chief Preservation Officer of the National Trust, Katherine Malone-France, for a daily welcome, logistical information, and preview of conference highlights for the day.

Please join us to officially welcome the 2021 class of Diversity Scholars and Conference Mentors! We will be showcasing success stories from participating scholars and facilitating conversations amongst conference attendees, scholars, conference mentors, and National Trust Advisors. We look forward to seeing you there!

Join the Preservation Action Foundation for “Refresh the Movement: Virtual Fundraiser and Auction”, which will feature impact stories from preservation organizations across the country doing amazing work to "refresh the movement" and showcase the elected officials who contributed to an incredibly successful year in Congress. Bid on an array of tours and experiences, travel packages, educational opportunities, and one-of-a-kind gift items – all for a great cause. It’s time to refresh. Be there! Sign up for the Silent Auction from October 25th to November 8th and purchase tickets for our Live Auction on November 2nd from 7-8pm ET.

General Admission Tickets: $25
Table for Five: $100
Silent Auction Only: Register for Free

Purchase tickets: https://events.handbid.com/auctions/refresh-the-movement

Preservation voices need to be heard on Capitol Hill. Join with others from your state to advocate online for historic preservation priorities with your federal delegation. Information about these priorities will be provided by the National Trust’s Government Relations office prior to the conference.

When you register for the conference, be sure to indicate your interest and a person from your state will be in contact with you shortly! The last day to “register” for this part of the conference is Monday, October 25. Questions? Email hstark@savingplaces.org.

Join Chief Preservation Officer of the National Trust, Katherine Malone-France, for a daily welcome, logistical information, and preview of conference highlights for the day.

One in four adults in the United States have some type of disability. Discover how cultural spaces and historic sites are tackling and making their offerings more accommodating and welcoming to this community. Learn how physical, digital and social spaces can be more inclusive to differing abilities and preferences. Preservationists, museum experts, and disability advocates representing the Blind, Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Disability/Access communities will provide case-studies and ways to improve the visitor experience for everyone.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Join the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund's DuPont Fellows to hear innovative and creative ways to present previously untold stories. Hear this year's Fellows describe their storytelling work with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and the National Trust's Historic Sites Department. Learn about the Action Fund's work to support historic places that have been overlooked in American history and represent centuries of African American activism, achievement, and resilience.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

This session will provide inspiration, practical expertise, best practices, and case-studies that exemplify the capacity of preservation to address, combat, and mitigate climate change. Join a diverse panel of specialists working in preservation to hear real world applications of how our work as stewards of individual historic structures, main streets, and entire cities can be more explicitly "green." Learn about interventions to address flood and fire risk as well as a campaign to encourage reuse and deconstruction in the United Kingdom.

Learn how to use thematic frameworks, theme studies, and context statements--all vital tools for identifying, assessing, and listing historic places. Used at the international, regional, and local levels, these tools foster an inclusive approach to assessing places and expanding significance beyond great architectural works or historic events. Discover how the cities of Los Angeles and Toronto, both with large collections of twentieth-century buildings, use these tools to assess heritage significance. Hear how practitioners can use the Twentieth-Century Historic Thematic Framework to preserve cultural heritage sites.

Less than 10 percent of properties listed in the National Register are associated with minority cultural, ethnic, or identity communities. Yet the criteria for assessing historic significance and physical integrity was carefully crafted to provide for a wide diversity of resources. Is the application of those criteria fulfilling that responsibility? Is the bar too high for documentation of a property’s significance? And what happens when a property has changed over time because of intentional alteration to ensure its continued usefulness to a community or has fallen into disrepair due to disinvestment in a community? Learn how the National Park Service and its partners are working to address these questions to ensure the National Register includes properties of significance to all communities. Developed in partnership with the National Park Service.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Learn the techniques the faculty and students at Tuskegee University--the only Historically Black College and University (HBCU) campus recognized as a National Historic Landmark--are using to document the campus. Discover how to combine traditional architecture skills such as field sketching and hand measuring with contemporary tools like laser scanning, photogrammetry, and drones. Also hear about the University's endeavor to reconnect architecture students to the building trades. Sponsored by Advisory Council for Historic Preservation.

Restoring and sustaining historic houses of worship takes partnerships and creativity. Learn from experienced congregational and nonprofit leaders how to approach saving historic sacred places with intentionality to engage diverse architectural and preservation trades professionals. Discover ways to rally community support for a historic sacred place and to build partnerships to ensure success. Hear how preservation nonprofits can be leaders in this important work.

In 2020, a 5-lane highway was proposed to go through the historic Phillips Community in Mount Pleasant, SC. This National Register-eligible African American settlement community was established after the Civil War by a group of formerly enslaved persons who banded together to purchase the property (a former plantation) to create an independent and self-sufficient community. Many of the descendants of those original settlers still live on the land their ancestors bought as free citizens. Charleston County proposed to widen SC Highway 41 through the center of the Phillips Community. After a grassroots advocacy effort let by the SC Coastal Conservation League, a different preferred alternative was selected (but is not yet final). Three speakers will talk about the grassroots, collaborative effort to save this community and the issues related to heirs rights and condemnation.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

African American cultural heritage sites are under severe threat of elimination in many U.S. cities. Explore the role of African American land retention in mitigating against the negative effects of the re-introduction of new capital, populations, and culture into these neighborhoods. Hear panelists discuss the value of acquiring, holding on to, and developing property in historically African American urban neighborhoods, and how it impacts economic development, population retention, and heritage preservation. Learn the techniques used to overcome obstacles such the lack of available private capital, infrastructure disinvestment, and the disconnect between mainstream real estate development and African America landownership.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Our shared heritage of public historic landscapes can be preserved, while achieving progress on climate change action, inclusion and justice. In this focused presentation the speaker will present the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda framework and recent works that preserve and uplift cultural landscapes while improving access, habitat, and community resilience.

The evolution of solar panels has been dramatic but aesthetic considerations have not kept up with technological advances. Advocacy campaigns will be required to push the industry toward technological developments specifically designed to meet preservation needs. Learn how to help historic buildings survive in a time when fossil fuels are no longer in use.

Since 2014, the Historic Preservation Fund has served as the primary driving force for supporting the preservation and documentation of underrepresented communities across the nation. Attend this session and learn about the variety of grant programs that can assist in documenting and preserving the important history that isn't in our history books. Developed in partnership with the National Park Service.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Together with American Express, the National Trust launched the Backing Historic Small Restaurants Grant Program, a national search for the cozy cafes, delicious dives, and other beloved restaurants that have stood the test of time and served their communities for decades—but faced their biggest challenges ever during the pandemic. The program highlighted restaurants owned by underrepresented groups, including People of Color and women, which were disproportionally impacted by COVID-19.

Join us for a fun event that will highlight delicious foods from a few of the 25 grant recipients. Acquire new chef skills while hearing restauranteurs describe not only their historic places and favorite dishes, but also the hard work of their recovery.

Preservation voices need to be heard on Capitol Hill. Join with others from your state to advocate online for historic preservation priorities with your federal delegation. Information about these priorities will be provided by the National Trust’s Government Relations office prior to the conference.

When you register for the conference, be sure to indicate your interest and a person from your state will be in contact with you shortly! The last day to “register” for this part of the conference is Monday, October 25. Questions? Email hstark@savingplaces.org.

Join Chief Preservation Officer of the National Trust, Katherine Malone-France, for a daily welcome, logistical information, and preview of conference highlights for the day.

Hood creates dynamic urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honoring communal histories as evidenced by his bold vision for the iconic Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. Hear this national leader discuss his commitment to design ecologically sustainable public spaces that empower marginalized communities. Discover how Hood engages with community members to tease out social histories as well as current residents’ shared patterns of use and aspirations for a place. Conference attendees are encouraged to read the 2020 publication titled Black Landscapes Matter edited by Walter Hood and Grace Mitchell Tada which “assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to proble how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.

Walter Hood is the Creative Director and Founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California and the David K. Woo Chair and the Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.

Brent Leggs is the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund – the largest preservation campaign in U.S. History on behalf of historic African American places.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Get an introduction into conducting an investigation of a historically significant property. Learn best practices for assessing exterior and interior finishes, structural and building systems, material condition, and historical integrity of historic properties.

This session will focus on the radical and revelatory work that descendants of slavery have been leading at their ancestral historic places. The panel will explore how historic sites, using the "Engaging Descendant Communities in the Interpretation of Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites Rubric", can work successfully and equitably with descendants to create better stewardship and interpretation frameworks. Session participants will also learn about the work of RISE (Reimagining International Sites of Enslavement) which is a new collaboration between the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) and the International Trusts Organization (INTO).

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Successful historic preservation is a community-driven activity. To ensure preservation practices and policies become more equitable, we need to increase participation in local public processes. To do this, we must share power and nurture trust within communities that historically have been marginalized. Hear a cross-section of preservation advocates, municipal governments, and community-based organizations discuss how they are working in partnership with historically excluded communities to address the failings of local land use policies.

Although preservationists acknowledge the field suffers from a lack of diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, barriers to diversity remain in the systems that determine how we preserve, what we preserve, and who preserves. Practitioners of preservation remain predominantly white, and the targets and techniques of preservation still perpetuate a shortfall in the protection and celebration of diverse heritage. Hear about the recent work of the Preservation Priorities Task Force focusing on Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA), as well as new data, case studies, and resources to strengthen DEIA advocacy at the state and local levels.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

How do historic preservation's policies, practices, and priorities impede or support strategies for tackling climate change? Four practitioners will share their work in this arena and discuss next steps for our field, including research uncovering tensions between historic building protections and energy performance codes. Discover ways to integrate cultural heritage to address climate change. Hear how inclusive cultural practices and policies can better support climate migrants and the existing communities they join. Learn about the impacts of "managed retreat" policies and practices on the preservation of aging African American neighborhoods.

Join the National Trust Community Investment Corporation as we discuss the fundamentals of the Historic Tax Credit (HTC), the country's most successful funding tool for Historic Preservation. In this session, you will learn how a project receives HTCs, how organizations like NTCIC can help monetize credits to help finance historic preservation initiatives, and how other available public financing options can support projects. We will also discuss emerging legislation that will further support the historic preservation field.

Sponsored by Alexander Company.

History has re-emerged in recent years as a central facet of our public discourse. Using the findings and recommendations from the American Association for State and Local History’s "Framing History with the American Public" project, hear how and why language choices and strategies matter so much when communicating with the public. Learn new framing devices, and the research behind them, to communicate more effectively.

Hear about the successes and challenges of saving three Asian American historic sites. First, learn about the 1882 Foundation's efforts to establish the 1865-1869 Central Pacific Railroad Summit Tunnels historic site which was built by approximately 1200-1500 Chinese under the supervision of Charles Crocker and James H. Strobridge. Learn from the Chinese American Citizens Alliance's effort to acquire National Register and National Historic Landmark (NHL) status for their headquarters at 1044 Stockton Street in San Francisco. Finally, take away lessons learned from a Harada descendant and a curator of the Riverside Museum about their success in getting the Harada House in Riverside, California listed as a National Historic Landmark.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Hear about the unusual partnership formed by the City of Cleveland's Department of Building and Housing and the Cleveland Restoration Society (CRS) to preserve, rather than demolish, historic buildings when feasible. Learn how properties on the department's demolition pipeline list have become major projects of CRS. This session will demonstrate how a proactive collaboration between city government and nonprofit can strengthen historic districts and avoid demolition.

Women have played a pivotal, but often underappreciated, role in the preservation of America's historic places. Hear from sites who were donated by women and learn how their founding visions still influence each site to this day. From providing specific wishes in their bequests to serving as unofficial first curators shaping the objects and materials left with the site, these women played a proactive and important part of preserving these sites. While their contributions have remained largely behind the scenes, hear how sites today are expanding their interpretation to honor these important women.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

As our nation grapples with significant challenges—from racial injustice to climate change and the ongoing pandemic—the work of preservation has never been more important. React to proposed ideas for encouraging collaborative, coordinated action to address these challenges.

Join this meeting to give your feedback on six draft goals and multiple actions suggested by more than 400 of your colleagues. Choose one of six breakout rooms to offer your own ideas for actions the preservation movement can take—individually and collectively—to deepen the impacts of our work.

Preservation voices need to be heard on Capitol Hill. Join with others from your state to advocate online for historic preservation priorities with your federal delegation. Information about these priorities will be provided by the National Trust’s Government Relations office prior to the conference.

When you register for the conference, be sure to indicate your interest and a person from your state will be in contact with you shortly! The last day to “register” for this part of the conference is Monday, October 25. Questions? Email hstark@savingplaces.org.

Join Chief Preservation Officer of the National Trust, Katherine Malone-France, for a daily welcome, logistical information, and preview of conference highlights for the day.

Engaging people through storytelling is a key component of every preservationist’s toolkit whether building trust with community members, convincing an elected official, engaging allies, or interpreting a historic place or sacred artifact. Hear Cassie and Jamie share their passion for storytelling and the different ways they use this preservation tool to connect others to the Asian Pacific American experience.

With the onset of the pandemic and the push for social justice came the need and opportunity to engage more people thoughtfully about the legacy of xenophobia in the United States. Cassie and Jamie will reflect on how sharing the history of physical places and objects can foster healing and increase the resiliency of our communities.

How do you activate community members, business owners, elected officials, and property owners in climate adaptation? Learn specific best practices promoted by FEMA and other state and local agencies for risk communications, promoting behavioral change, and available tools and resources. Through case study presentations from Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, and Florida, take away tips and techniques for identifying and engaging partners and stakeholders, educating decision-makers, and building public awareness.

Understanding commemoration is an important aspect of the sociology of culture because it is one method a society uses to perceive its past or attempts to come to terms with difficult histories. Explore how society assimilates past events when memory induces controversy instead of consensus. Learn about the challenge of representing these contrasting aspects in a single monument.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

The national affordable housing crisis has placed historic preservation in the cross-hairs: as an impediment to creating new housing and as an underutilized resource to create and retain affordable housing. Hear a lively discussion from speakers working in the field about the current issues revolving around affordable housing and historic preservation, including current incentives and practices that encourage affordable housing and how to counter the argument that preservation requirements at local, state and federal levels are preventing the creation of affordable and new housing.

Often seen as a barrier, building and fire codes should be viewed as tools to encourage rehabilitation. Appropriate adoption and enforcement can protect buildings from becoming unsafe and candidates for demolition, while also retaining historic character. Learn how to ensure that owners, design professionals, and code officials are knowledgeable about the various code paths available to them. Gain a basic understanding of the model building codes for the rehabilitation and maintenance of existing buildings and how preservation advocates can support their greater use.

Sponsored by Sandvick Architects.

Learn about Ekungok i Estoria-ta (Listen to our Stories), a Guam Preservation Trust project that brings narrative to the local level by transmitting important lessons of Guam’s history while preserving its indigenous language. Hear how this project expands on place-based learning with the creative use of song. This community driven project increases the capacity for Chamoru language teachers and learners to teach, speak, and enjoy learning about Guam history in the Chamoru language. Additionally, this preservation project enables the indigenous community to evoke greater meaning, emotion, and even mystery as they learn about a historic place in their language.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Historic public school buildings, some of the most important, prominent, and valued structures in a community, are frequently adapted to new uses. However, their reuse presents financing, programmatic, and code challenges. Several case studies of projects completed through the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program, will demonstrate how schools are being successfully rehabilitated to retain their historic character using the Standards for Rehabilitation.

Developed in partnership with the National Park Service.

In this session, learn how to identify ways in which local preservation policies are biased and how local municipalities can address these racial equity and justice issues. Discover practical methods for achieving policy change through partnership with academics, practitioners, local municipalities, and members of marginalized communities.

Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

The construction industry has faced the problem of significant preservation craft professional shortages over the past 50. Hear how the National Trust and the National Preservation Partners Network have formed a partnership to address these issues and create actionable items that state, local, and grassroots preservation organizations can take.