Chesapeake Gateways Partner Profile: National Trust for Historic Preservation

In 1949, Congress chartered the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) to support the preservation of places critical to the American story. For more than 70 years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has led the movement to save America’s historic places. A privately funded nonprofit organization, NTHP works to save America's historic sites; tell the full American story; build stronger communities; and invest in preservation's future. In November 2017, the National Trust for Historic Preservation launched its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program that makes an important and lasting contribution to the American landscape by preserving sites of African American activism, achievement, and resilience. Through this preservation effort—the largest ever undertaken in support of African American historic sites— the NTHP works to expand the American story.

The National Park Service's Chesapeake Gateways and National Trust for Historic Preservation partnership advances a common goal of sharing and saving the full American story. In coordination with the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the partnership will map and identify sites and landscapes in the Chesapeake Bay watershed region significant to African American history and culture. The project includes two phases: 1) to map and increase awareness about the number, location, types, and significance of African American historic sites within the Chesapeake Bay watershed and support regional historic preservation planning efforts; and 2) to create respectful dialogue with African American communities in the watershed that requests their participation, listens to their perspectives, incorporates their suggestions and feedback, and gives credit for their input.