On the morning of April 28, a fire broke out at the Historic Clayborn Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, causing significant damage. While the cause is still unknown, the fire devastated the building, a landmark with significant ties to the Civil Rights Movement.

Following the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker in February 1968 —a consequence of low pay, no benefits, and horrible working conditions—over 1300 Black sanitation workers went on strike, gathering at the Clayborn Temple which served as a starting place for marches, a meeting point for strategy sessions, and where the Temple’s pastor printed the “I Am A Man” signs.

On April 3, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived in Memphis to support the Sanitation Worker’s Strike and was assassinated the next day at the Lorraine Motel. Just four days later Coretta Scott King led over 40,000 people in the march that resulting in an agreement with the City Council. It was at Clayborn Temple that the sanitation workers gathered to hear the terms.

Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and senior vice president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation said, “This fire is a tragedy, and our hearts and minds are with the greater Memphis community. Clayborn Temple is an irreplicable bastion of American history, and its physical structure must be preserved. The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has an emergency rapid-response grants program to provide immediate support for historically Black churches. We will work with our partners and leadership at Clayborn Temple to find a way forward.”

Since launching the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund in 2017, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been working with the nonprofit Historic Clayborn Temple to transform this sacred space as a venue of arts, culture and community.