July 19, 2022

National Trust Awards $3 Million in Grants to 33 Sites to Help Preserve Black History

2022 African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Grantees Listed by Preservation Project Category

On July 19, 2022, the National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded $3 million in grants to 33 sites and organizations through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Since its inception in 2017, the Action Fund has supported 160 places through its National Grant Program for a total investment of $12.4 million. This year’s list further demonstrates the beauty and complexity of African American life, and includes historic sites tied to Black arts, culture, civic engagement, entrepreneurship, sports, medicine, education, religion, and social justice.

The grants will fuel the protection and preservation of historic sites representing African American history, across four categories: building capital, increasing organizational capacity, project planning and development, and programming and education.

These often-overlooked places hold aspects of history that must be protected—and used to draw inspiration and wisdom for the benefit of all Americans. Read the full press release here.

Learn more about the 2022 grantees below.

Organizational Capacity

Anne Spencer House, Lynchburg, Virginia (2009)
Eli Pousson/Flickr

Anne Spencer House & Garden
Anne Spencer House & Garden Museum, Lynchburg, Virginia

Renowned Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer’s house and garden was both a place of reflection and a gathering space for African American leaders and creatives, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Zora Neale Hurston. The museum will create an executive director position to oversee programming and restoration work.

Scene from the Till House on Emmett Till’s 80th Birthday, Chicago, Illinois
A. Cuzan

Home of Mamie Till Mobley and Emmett Till
Blacks in Green, Chicago, Illinois

In the years leading up to her son Emmett Till’s murder—the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement—Mamie Till Mobley lived in her mother’s 1895 two-flat in Chicago. A project director position will be created to focus on programming and heritage projects, including restoring the home’s interior to its 1955 configuration when Emmett last lived there.

Historic photo of Nettie Asberry’s music room, where she taught music to generations of students, date unknown, Tacoma, Washington.
Martha C. Broussard

Home of Nettie Asberry
Grantee: Tacoma City Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Tacoma, Washington

Nettie Asberry was a music educator, civil rights activist and founder of the first NAACP chapter west of the Rockies. Throughout the span of her life, Asberry led movements that opened doors for Black musicians, educators and community organizers to thrive. The Tacoma City Association of Colored Women’s Clubs will hire its first executive director to lead the site’s preservation, interpretation, and reuse of educator Nettie Asberry’s home.

Street view of the Exterior view of the historic Billy Webb Elks Lodge #1, Portland, Oregon
Architectural Resources Group

Billy Webb Elks Lodge #1050
Billy Webb Elks Lodge Name, Portland, Oregon

A gathering place and venue for the Portland African American community, the 1926 Billy Webb Elks Lodge #1050 will hire an executive director and operations manager to oversee its rehabilitation project and implement the business and preservation plans crucial to the site’s sustainability.

City of Chicago, Illinois
Sean Pavone/iStock

Chicago’s African American Historic Neighborhoods and Landmarks
City of Chicago, Department of Planning and Development, Chicago, Illinois

A new initiative created by the City of Chicago will center around community engagement through public workshops and outreach, advancing the preservation efforts of Black historic landmarks citywide. As part of the initiative, a new registry of Black-owned businesses will be developed to encourage neighborhood revitalization.


Project Planning

Faith Ringgold House, Englewood, New Jersey
Grace Matthews

Home and Studio of Faith Ringgold
Anyone Can Fly Foundation, Englewood, New Jersey

World-renowned artist Faith Ringgold’s New Jersey home and studio honors the living artist’s contributions and serves as a source of inspiration for the future generations of creatives. Increased support for the site’s preservation needs, along with programming will further center the home as a cultural exhibition space celebrating African American art, scholarship, and Ringgold’s artistic legacy.

Greek heritage exhibit at Tarpon Springs Heritage Museum, Florida
Caroline Lanford

Union Academy Neighborhood
City of Tarpon Springs, Tarpon Springs, Florida

The sponge harvesting industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries attracted African Americans to Tarpon Springs and resulted in the creation of the historic Union Academy neighborhood, the oldest African American community in Pinellas County. A cultural resources survey will be conducted that incorporates Union Academy into the historic district and greater narrative of the city of Tarpon Springs.

Historic Gullah Home, Daufuskie Island, South Carolina
Sallie Ann Robinson

Maryfield Cemetery
Daufuskie Island Gullah Heritage Society, Daufuskie Island, South Carolina

Only seven families are left on Daufuskie Island, a sea island in South Carolina within the Gullah Geechee corridor. Gullah history on the island faces threats of development, gentrification pressures, and cultural loss and little is currently known about Maryfield Cemetery. A community-based initiative using research combined with oral histories will help assess and document the cemetery, create a restoration and maintenance plan, and address issues surrounding descendant access.

Louis Armstrong House Museum, Corona, New York, 2021.
JoeMabel/Wikimedia

Louis Armstrong House Museum
Louis Armstrong House Museum, Corona, New York

Pioneering jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the first African American to host a radio show and receive featured billing in a Hollywood movie, lived in his 1910 Queens home. A conditions assessment report and strategic business plan will allow the house museum to continue to be sustainable and share Armstrong’s life and legacy.

Aspirational rendering of the Michigan Street African American Heritage Headquarters and Visitor Center (Buffalo, New York) as shown in the 2022 Strategic Plan
Moody Nolan

Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor
Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission, Buffalo, New York 

The Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor is a historic Black neighborhood in Buffalo. Through the commission, four of the corridor’s cultural institutions and sites are collaborating to develop a business plan and feasibility study to create a headquarters, visitors center, and business incubator program.

True Holiness Temple, Cleveland, Ohio, 2021
Cleveland Restoration Society

Cleveland’s Black Churches
Cleveland Restoration Society, Cleveland, Ohio

There are many sacred landmarks in Cleveland that have played an important role in the historic of the African American experience. The Cleveland Restoration Society will conduct a study and create a development plan to establish a fund to support the repair and restoration of historic African American churches across the city.

Jessie Huff with her kindergarten class in Carlsbad, NM.
High Plains Historical Foundation

Statewide Documentation of Jim Crow Segregation in New Mexico
New Mexico Preservation Division, Santa Fe, New Mexico

African Americans are not often associated with the story of the American Southwest, yet the community has played a role in the region’s evolution. The New Mexico Preservation Division will leverage funding to identify and document Jim Crow-era sites across nine cities in New Mexico. Their research will help source new locations for future National Register of Historic Places listings and add to the collective understanding of African American life during this era of American history.

Work Session, Mt. Vernon Cemetery, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 2015
Steven Burg

Pennsylvania's Cemeteries and Burial Grounds
Preservation Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

A new statewide program will be developed to protect and preserve Pennsylvania’s African American cemeteries and burial grounds, creating a pilot project offering mini-grants, technical assistance, and a toolkit for the cemeteries' stewards.


Programming and Interpretation

Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home, Jackson, Mississippi
Department of Interior

Home of Medgar & Myrlie Evers
Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute, Jackson, Mississippi

The Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute will take on an innovative approach to interpretation and public education of the national monument by telling the full history of the Evers family along with the 1963 assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. The project will use creative digital tools and a “healing interpretation” method designed to bolster mental health and racial trauma awareness.

The Second Baptist Church is one of 17 stops along the existing Southern West Virginia African American Heritage Tour, Oak Hill, West Virginia
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

Southern West Virginia African American Heritage Tour
National Coal Heritage Area Authority, Oak Hill, West Virginia

The National Coal Heritage Area Authority will expand its existing program to develop a new, place-based tour and digital program. The heritage tour will advance the research and interpretation of Black coal miners and labor history in southern West Virginia.


Capital Projects

The Turf Club Exterior, September 2020. Featuring mural by Larry Walker. Asbury Park, New Jersey
Connie Freestone

The Turf Club
Asbury Park African American Music Project, Inc., Asbury Park, New Jersey

An African American music venue, the Turf Club is the last structure representing the vibrancy and history of Springwood Avenue. Located in the heart of the Black community and its once-thriving commercial and entertainment district in Jersey’s Asbury Park shore community, the Club building will be rehabilitated to help save the vacant landmark.

Community members and supporters gathered in front of the Blue Bird Inn, Detroit, Michigan
Iian Tarver/Detroit Sound Conservancy

Blue Bird Inn
Detroit Sound Conservancy, Detroit, Michigan

Detroit’s Blue Bird Inn, the birthplace of bebop jazz and haven for the Black community before Motown, was a victim of neighborhood disinvestment. “The Bird” will undergo a rehabilitation of its interior and its mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, with the hopes of becoming an archive as well as a gathering space and music venue once more.

Front façade of Quinn Chapel AME Church, Louisville, Kentucky, 2022.
Louisville Metro Government

Quinn Chapel AME
Develop Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville’s Quinn Chapel AME has a long history of civil rights involvement dating from its congregation’s establishment in 1838, when it was known as the “Abolitionist Church” to the present. The building’s electricity, which is critical for the church building’s future rehabilitation and reuse, will be restored.

Brown Chapel AME Church, Selma, Alabama
Ron Cogswell/Wikimedia

Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church
Brown Chapel AME Church Preservation Society, Selma, Alabama

In 1965, civil rights marchers—including the late Rep. John Lewis—met at the historic 1908 Brown Chapel AME Church before they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and were beaten and attacked by state troopers on the day known as “Bloody Sunday,” which became the catalyst for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Water and termite damage will be addressed, along with replacement of the tower cupolas’ structural beams.

Exterior view of historic Kappa House, Washington, DC
Wikimedia

Historic Kappa House
Historic Kappa House Restoration Foundation, Washington, D.C.

Constructed in 1908 by architect Leon Dessez, who also designed the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory, the Historic Kappa House is a Georgian-style architectural gem. Owned by the D.C. Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. since 1949, it was the first home purchased by a Black Greek letter organization in the nation’s capital. Rehabilitation of the building’s third and fourth floors will ensure continued use as a community resource.

James Welson Johnson’s Writing Cabin, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 2021.
Felix Augustine

James Weldon Johnson’s Writing Cabin
James Weldon Johnson Foundation, Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Noted poet, writer, songwriter and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson, known for the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sought creative refuge in this small wooden cabin set in a quiet hemlock grove. The cabin’s roof, chimney, and foundation will be stabilized and repaired for future use as a writing study and studio for scholars and authors.

Exterior view of Mound Bayou Bank, Jackson, Mississippi
Mississippi Heritage Trust

Mound Bayou Bank
Mississippi Heritage Trust, Jackson, Mississippi

Founded by businessman Charles Banks described by Booker T. Washington as “the most influential Negro businessman in the United States,” the 1904 Mound Bayou Bank served as the symbol of progress, entrepreneurship, and commercial enterprise for the prospering Black community in Jackson. An exterior rehabilitation will secure its future use as a museum and visitors center.

Coggswell-Taylor House and Jackson Street Store facing west, Virginia, City, Montana
Dustin Kalanick

Coggswell-Taylor House and Jackson Street Store
Montana Heritage Commission, Virginia City, Montana

Business pioneers Minerva Coggswell and Jack Taylor lived at and operated businesses in these buildings for over sixty-five years. The 1866-67 Coggswell-Taylor House and Jackson Street Store will be stabilized and rehabilitated, telling the stories of African American pioneers and entrepreneurs who made their homes and lives on Montana’s mining frontier.

King Solomon Masonic Lodge #1, New Bern, North Carolina
Stanley Trice

King Solomon Masonic Lodge #1
New Bern Preservation Foundation, New Bern, North Carolina

In continuous use since its construction in 1871, King Solomon Masonic Lodge #1 was the first African American masonic lodge established in North Carolina. The center of New Bern’s Black community, its interior walls, ceilings, and floors will be repaired, and its mechanical systems replaced.

Okahumpka Rosenwald School, Florida, 2021.
Chip D. Amico/Okahumpka Community Club

Okahumpka Rosenwald School
Okahumpka Community Club, Okahumpka, Florida

Of the 120 schools for African American students built in Florida through a partnership between educator Booker T. Washington and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, only 23 remain. The vacant Okahumpka Rosenwald School, built in 1929 for the children of Black rural farm workers and laborers, will have its foundation stabilized and roof and windows restored.

Watercolor rendering of the rehabilitated Eldorado Ballroom (Texas) by Timothy Edward, Eaton-Koch
Project Row Houses Archive

Eldorado Ballroom
Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas

Once listed in the Green Book as a “must-visit” destination for African Americans in Houston’s Third Ward, the Eldorado Ballroom has a unique history as a retail space and first-class musical venue that welcomed music legends such as Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles. This project will repair and restore the site’s ground- and second-floor windows.

Second Baptist Church of Los Angeles Sanctuary balcony, California
Gerald Harper

Second Baptist Church of Los Angeles
Second Baptist Church, Los Angeles, California

Paul R. Williams, the first Black architect in the American Institute of Architects (AIA), was known for his Modernist style and influential work throughout Los Angeles. Designed by Williams in 1926, and later becoming a civil rights sanctuary in the mid-twentieth century, the vacant Second Baptist Church will conduct much-needed structural repairs and replace deteriorated wooden trusses before it can reopen the historic church building.

Tyler Hall at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina
Daderot/Wikimedia

Shaw University’s Tyler Hall
Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina 

For more than a century, Tyler Hall has served students at Shaw University—the oldest HBCU in the South—as a library and community hospital. The windows will be repaired and restored, and the HVAC system replaced.

Winsborough Hall at Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Michael A. Hubbard

Stillman College’s Winsborough Hall
Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Built in 1922, Winsborough Hall was the first female residence at Stillman College and the first school for Black women supported by the Presbyterian Church. Throughout the years, the “honors dorm” became a refuge for students during the Civil Rights Movement. The roof will be repaired and the site reused as a senior citizen living space, creating a multigenerational campus experience.

Whirlwind Johnson Home, Richmond, Virginia, 2012.
KippTeague/Flickr

Home of Dr. Robert Walter “Whirlwind” Johnson
Whirlwind Johnson Foundation, Lynchburg, Virginia

Dr. Robert Walter “Whirlwind” Johnson was a force behind the integration of tennis. A coach to two African American grand slam champions, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, Dr. Johnson disrupted the tennis landscape and made space for generations of Black athletes to train on his backyard courts. Rehabilitation of his home’s foundation, exterior (including roof), porch, windows and doors will ensure his legacy remains.

Exterior view of the Whitney Plantation store front, Wallace, Louisiana, April 2022.
Ashley Rogers

Whitney Plantation’s Store
Whitney Plantation, Wallace, Louisiana

Known for their deliberate interpretation of plantation life from the viewpoint of the enslaved, the Whitney Plantation will revitalize the storefront of its Plantation Store (c. 1890), allowing its Jim Crow-era history to continue to be told.

Exterior view of the Dumas Pharmacy and Medical Offices, Natchez, Mississippi
Ben Hillyer

Dumas Pharmacy Building
Dumas Building Restoration Foundation, Natchez, Mississippi

The Dumas family built two commercial buildings between 1906 and 1913 that contained doctor and dentist offices, a pharmacy, and a soda fountain that acted as a resource and business hub within the Black community. The roof will be repaired and stabilized on both buildings.

Exterior view of the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum Armory building circa 2020, Houston, Texas
Surely Shirly/Flickr

Buffalo Soldiers National Museum
Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, Houston, Texas 

The National Buffalo Soldiers’ Museum, located in the 1925 Houston Light Guard Armory building, is home to one of the largest private collections of African American military artifacts. Repairs to the building’s wall, steel base, and exterior brick masonry will help the museum better preserve and protect its collection.

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