News Release

Interior and National Park Service Announces $12.6 Million in Grants to Preserve African American Civil Rights History

Using a 2016 African American Civil Rights grant, conservators restored the laylights of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a predominately African American church that was the target of a bombing in 1963.

Image courtesy of ArchitectureWorks LLP

News Release Date: March 12, 2018

Contact: Department of the Interior Press Office

Contact: NPS Office of Communications

(Press release originally distribted by the Department of the Interior Press Office)

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service today announced $12.6 million in grants for 51 projects in 24 states that preserve sites and highlight stories related to the African American struggle for equality in the 20th century.

"An integral part of the Interior and National Park Service mission is to help preserve and tell America’s story,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. “These grants will benefit places across the nation that help tell an essential piece of that story through the African American struggle for civil rights and equality.”

“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 Dan Smith said. “By working with local communities to preserve these historic places and stories, we will help tell a more complete narrative of the African American experience in the pursuit of civil rights.”

Projects receiving grants this year include those that will preserve resources like a baseball stadium used by the Negro National League in Paterson, New Jersey; the home of civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell in Washington, D.C.; and the last standing African American officers’ club at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Grant projects also include statewide surveys to identify lesser-known civil rights sites, planning exhibits and interpretive trails, and collecting oral histories.

Congress appropriated funding for the African American Civil Rights Grants Program in 2016 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. For the second year of this grants program, Congress increased funding from $8 million to $13 million in 2017.
Grant-supported projects include surveys and documentation, interpretation and education, oral histories, architectural services, historic structure reports, planning, and physical preservation.

Projects receiving an African American Civil Rights grants include:
 

State	Project	Grantee	Amount
Alabama	The Restoration of Mount Zion A.M.E. Zion Church Memorial Annex	Mount Zion Center Foundation, Inc.	$500,000
Alabama	Restoration and Rehabilitation of the Perry County Jailhouse	Perry County Commission	$500,000
Alabama	Preservation, Repair and Restoration of the Historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church: Phase III	Sixteenth Street Baptist Church	$500,000
Alabama	Moore Building Master Plan and Phase I Rehabilitation	Alabama Historical Commission	$365,720
Alabama	Second Phase Continuation in the Preservation of Brown Chapel AME	Historic Brown Chapel AME Church Preservation Society, Inc.	$300,000
Alabama	21st Century Preservation & the Next Generation of Global Activism: Archives Preservation and Digitization Project	Birmingham Civil Rights Institute	$44,918
Alabama	Civil Rights Struggle in the Shoals	University of North Alabama	$45,364
Alabama	Freedom Rides Museum 60th Anniversary Commemoration Exhibit Plans	Alabama Historical Commission	$50,000
Alabama	Montgomery Alabama Civil Rights Survey/Planning/Research/Documentation	City of Montgomery	$50,000
Arkansas	Preserving the History of Central High School	Little Rock School District	$499,218
Arkansas	Dreamland Ballroom Public Access Project	Friends of Dreamland	$499,668
Arizona	Mountain View Officers’ Club Preservation Project	Arizona Department of Parks	$500,000
District of Columbia	Preserving the Homes of Two Pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement: Mary Church Terrell and Walter E. Washington	Howard University	$500,000
District of Columbia	Washington DC’s 20th Century Civil Rights Movement: Researching and Documenting Historic Sites	DC Preservation League	$50,000
Florida	Leon and Jewel Collins Museum of African American History- National Register of Historic Places Nomination	City of Cocoa	$50,00
Georgia	Preservation and Restoration of the Historic West Hunter Street Baptist Church, Phase 2	Ralph David Abernathy III Foundation, Inc.	$490,000
Georgia	Wheat Street Baptist Church Historic Renovation	Wheat Street Towers	$500,000
Georgia	Nominating U.S. Civil Rights Sites to the World Heritage List	Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc.	$50,000
Iowa	Battling for Equality: Civil Rights in Waterloo	City of Waterloo Historic Preservation Commission	$37,500
Iowa	Iowa’s African American Civil Rights Survey, Multiple Property Documentation and Nomination	State Historical Society of Iowa	$49,966
Illinois	Preservation of the Stone Temple Baptist Church Building	City of Chicago	$445,500
Indiana	Hoosier Civil Rights History: Development of a Virtual Museum for Engaging Indiana’s Civil Rights Legacy	Ball State University	$49,989
Kansas	St. Mark’s A.M.E. Church Rehabilitation Continuation	St. Mark’s A.M.E. Church of Topeka, KS Inc.	$496,800
Kentucky	Quinn Chapel AME Church Stabilization Project	Louisville Jefferson County Metropolitan Government	$450,000
Louisiana	Robert “Bob” Hicks House and 1906 Mill House Rehabilitation	The Robert “Bob” Hicks Foundation	$498,632
Louisiana	Old Galilee Missionary Baptist Church, Physical Preservation	City of Shreveport	$500,000
Louisiana	The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Educational Pavilion and Central City Civil Rights Corridor Project	Felicity Street Redevelopment, Inc.	$25,000
Louisiana	Cuttin’ Cane Ain’t All We Do	West Baton Rouge Museum	$50,000
Massachusetts	Preserving Clinton AME Zion Church and Interpreting the Life and Legacy of WEB Du Bois	Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, Inc.	$388,508
Maryland	Prince George’s County Civil Rights Trail	Anacostia Trails Heritage Area, Inc.	$45,100
Michigan	Pave the Way Project	City of Lansing	$39,400
Michigan	Every Man’s Home is his Castle	City of Detroit	$500,000
Mississippi	Phase One Rehabilitation of the Isaiah T. Montgomery House, Mound Bayou, MS	Mississippi Heritage Trust	$284,000
Mississippi	A Case to Save Wechsler School	The Wechsler Foundation	$500,000
Mississippi	Restoration of Historic Old Phoenix Naval Store	Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain	$499,534
Mississippi	Marks Mule Train and MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign Interpretive Trail	Quitman County Mississippi Government	$50,000
North Carolina	McKissick Soul City Civil Rights Center	County of Warren	$32,000
New Jersey	Hinchliffe Stadium Façade Rehabilitation Phase 2	City of Paterson	$500,000
New Jersey	Winning Civil Rights and Political Power	Center for Education and Juvenile Justice	$50,000
Nevada	The African American Experience in Nevada: An Historic Context	Nevada State Historic Preservation Office	$46,032
New York	African American Civil Rights in New York State (1900-1976): Multiple Property Documentation Form and Nomination	NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation	$49,118
South Carolina	Trustee Hall Historic Structure Report and Preservation Plan	Claflin University	$50,000
South Carolina	Documenting and Sharing the History of Mosquito Beach and its Role in the Civil Rights Movement	Historic Charleston Foundation	$43,084
South Carolina	Preservation and Repair or Historic Trinity United Methodist Church	Trinity Methodist Church	$500,000
South Carolina	A Journey to Equal Education: Stories from Historic African American Communities	Charleston County Government	$50,000
Tennessee	Memphis Heritage Trail	City of Memphis – Housing and Community Development	$50,000
Tennessee	Clayborn Temple Interior Sanctuary Restoration	City of Memphis- Division of Housing and Community Development	$500,000
Tennessee	Clayborn Temple and the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike	National Trust for Historic Preservation in the U.S.	$20,000
Texas	Freedmen’s Town Stories	Building Community Workshop	$50,000
Texas	Hopewell Rosenwald Community School	American Youthworks	$247,094
Virginia	Josephine City School Roof Project	County of Clarke Virginia	$17,885
Total			$12,610,000

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