Looking for a place to support or visit this year? The National Park Service announced $12.2 Million in Grants to Preserve African American Civil Rights History with 8 southern states receiving grants. These areas are a perfect place to travel and support this fall and holiday season either through a visit or a donation.
WASHINGTON – The National Park Service today announced $12.259 million in African American Civil Rights grants to fund 44 projects across 17 states that will preserve and highlight stories related to the African American struggle for equality in the 20th century.
“Through the work and engagement of public and private partners, these grants will preserve a defining part of our nation’s diverse history,” National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith said. “By working with underrepresented communities to preserve their historic places and stories, we will help tell a more complete narrative of the African American experience in the pursuit of civil rights.”
Congress appropriated funding for the African American Civil Rights Grants Program in 2018 through the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). The HPF uses revenue from federal oil leases on the Outer Continental Shelf, providing assistance for a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars. Grant-supported projects include surveys and documentation, interpretation and education, oral histories, architectural services, historic structure reports, planning, and physical preservation.
Projects receiving grants this year will preserve resources, places, and stories like the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; the African American Women’s Suffrage experience in Mount Vernon, New York; and the rehabilitation of the Juanita Craft Civil Rights House and Memorial Garden in Dallas, Texas. Grant projects also include surveys to identify lesser-known civil rights sites associated with Connecticut’s Southern Students Work Projects, the March on Frankfort, Kentucky, and an African American Civil Rights Trail in Cleveland, Ohio.
SOUTHERN STATE GRANTS
| State | Projects | Grantee |
| Alabama Auburn | Edmund Pettus Bridge: Historic Structures Report | Auburn University |
| Alabama Birmingham | Rehabilitation of St. Paul United Methodist Church | St. Paul United Methodist Church |
| Alabama-Birmingham | Preservation and Rehabilitation of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church: Phase 3 | Sixteenth Street Baptist Church |
| AlabamaBirmingham | Rehabilitation of the Historic Bethel Church Parsonage | Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund |
| AlabamaMarion | Stabilization and Roof Replacement of the Historic Lincoln Normal School Gymnasium: Phase 1 | Lincolnite Club, Inc. |
| AlabamaMontgomery | Rehabilitation of the Historic Moore Building: Phase 2 | Alabama Historical Commission |
| AlabamaMontgomery | Freedom Rides Museum Exhibit Plan | Alabama Historical Commission |
| AlabamaSelma | Rehabilitation of the Amelia Boynton Residence | Gateway Educational Foundation, Inc. & Brown Chapel AME Church |
| AlabamaSelma | Preservation of Historic Brown Chapel: Phase 3 | Brown Chapel AME Historical Preservation Foundation |
| AlabamaSelma | Oral Histories of the Untold Tabernacle Story | Tabernacle Baptist Church – Selma, AL Legacy Foundation, Inc. |
| AlabamaSelma | Tabernacle Baptist Church: Historic Structure Report and Stained Glass Assessment | Tabernacle Baptist Church –Legacy Foundation, Inc. |
| AlabamaTuskegee | TISEP/TICEP: History and Impact | Tuskegee University |
| ArkansasLittle Rock | Rehabilitation of Central High School: Phase 3 | Little Rock School District |
| KentuckyFrankfort | March on Frankfort: Oral History Project | City on Frankfort |
| FloridaSt. Augustine | Preservation of Excelsior High School Building | Friends of Lincolnville, Inc. |
| GeorgiaAmericus | Rehabilitation of the Americus Colored Hospital | Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered |
| GeorgiaAtlanta | Fountain (Stone) Hall Rehabilitation Project | Morris Brown College |
| LouisianaNew Orleans | New Orleans African American Civil Rights Movement Traveling Exhibition | Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation, Inc. |
| LouisianaShreveport | Rehabilitation of Old Galilee Missionary Baptist Church | City of Shreveport |
| North CarolinaCharlotte | Freedom Fighters of the West End: Research and Interpretation of Charlotte’s Historic West End Civil Rights Activists | Johnson C. Smith University |
| North CarolinaElizabeth City | Restoration of the Northeastern North Carolina African American Research and Cultural Heritage Center | Elizabeth City State University |
| North CarolinaFayetteville | Interpreting the Historical Significance of the Briggs v. Elliot (1952) Case in the African American Civil Rights Movement | Scotts Branch High Alumni Association, Inc. |
| North CarolinaRaleigh | Rehabilitation of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown State Historic Site | North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources |
| North CarolinaRaleigh | Restoration of Southern Railway Car No. 1211, a Jim Crow era segregated car | North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources |
| South CarolinaCharleston | Rehabilitation of the Pine Tree Hotel on Mosquito Beach, James Island | Historic Charleston Foundation |
| South CarolinaColumbia | “Justice for All” Exhibit: Connecting South Carolina’s Involvement in Demanding Justice for African American Rights Throughout the Civil Rights Movement | University of South Carolina |
| South CarolinaColumbia | Reinterpretation of the Modjeska Monteith Simkins House in Columbia | Historic Columbia Foundation |
| South CarolinaOrangeburg | Rehabilitation of the Historic Trinity United Methodist Church: Phase 2 | Trinity United Methodist Church |
| South CarolinaSt. Helena Island | Oral history project to collect 30 civil rights histories of key civil rights workers who were with King at Penn Center between 1963-1967 | Penn Center, Inc. |
| TexasDallas | Rehabilitation of the Juanita Craft Civil Rights House and Memorial Garden | City of Dallas |
| TexasMarshall | Classroom Culture in the Ark-La-Tex: Locating, Tecording, and Publicizing the African-American Civil Rights Stories of Ark-La-Tex | Bishop Blue |
| VirginiaGordonsville | Rehabilitation of St. John Rosenwald School | St. John Family Life and Fitness Center, Inc. |
| VirginiaHampton | Rehabilitation of the Thomas C. Walker House | Hampton University |
| VirginiaLynchburg | Rehabilitation of the Mary Jane Cachelin Science and Library Building | Virginia University of Lynchburg |
| VirginiaLynchburg | Rehabilitation of Graham Hall | Virginia University of Lynchburg |
| VirginiaRichmond | Rehabilitation of Third Street Bethel AME Church, Richmond: Phase 3 | Virginia Department of Historic Resources |
| VirginiaRichmond | Restoration of Virginia Union University’s Belgian Building for its Associations with the African American Civil Rights Movement | Virginia Union University |
| West VirginiaHuntington | Civil Rights Era Stories of African Americans in Appalachia | Marshall University Research Cooperation |
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