News Release

National Park Service Announces $14 Million in Grants to Preserve African American Civil Rights

Hamtramck Stadium in Hamtramck, Michigan is one of only five major league Negro League ballparks remaining in the country.

Photo courtesy of Andrew Jameson, 2012, Wikipedia

News Release Date: April 6, 2020

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WASHINGTON – The National Park Service (NPS) today announced $14 million in African American Civil Rights Historic Preservation Fund grants to fund 51 projects across 20 states and the District of Columbia that will preserve sites and history related to the African American struggle for equality in the 20th century.
 
“These grants will fund important projects that document, interpret, and preserve sites that tell the stories of the African American experience in the pursuit of civil rights,” said National Park Service Deputy Director David Vela, exercising the authority of the Director. “Thanks to the coordination of public and private partners, these projects will help connect Americans to historic places that preserve American history.”
 
Congress appropriated funding for the African American Civil Rights Grants Program in 2019 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.
 
“From 1923 to 1953, the Americus Colored Hospital was the only medical facility in the South where black medical professionals could practice and serve people of color. This hospital was vital to African Americans during Jim Crow and produced more trained professionals than larger cities like Atlanta, New York, and Chicago. During the Civil Rights Movement in Americus, the building became a Freedom Center and continued to serve the African American community in a new way,” said Georgia Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. “I am pleased this grant will preserve the Colored Hospital so future generations can learn about the strong civil rights history in southwest Georgia.”
 
“The preservation of these projects is an invaluable investment in the campuses, communities and individuals they serve,” said South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn. “I am pleased that these funds will continue to allow our communities to learn from the Civil Rights Movement and the important role that South Carolina played in making America’s greatness apply more fairly and equitably to all of its citizens.”
 
"This grant from the National Park Service is great news for the advancement of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot location as a site of historic importance and furthers our efforts to designate it as a National Historic Monument," said Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis. "I look forward to seeing these funds raise awareness and understanding of the site with the general public."
 
“Completed in 1918, Taborian Hall became a centerpiece of the African American community in central Arkansas and, during its heyday, showcased musical greats like Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzie Gillespie. In recent decades, Taborian Hall had fallen into disrepair and would have likely been demolished had Kerry McCoy and Friends of Dreamland not purchased it with the vision of restoring it to its former glory,” said Arkansas Congressman French Hill. “I commend the National Park Service for allocating nearly $500,000 to renovate and preserve this site and recognize its importance in the struggle for equality.”
 
Projects receiving grants this year will preserve resources, places, and stories like the Shepard Library at Stillman College, the Albert Kahn House in Detroit, Michigan, and the Greenwood Center buildings in Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Grant projects also include surveys across the country from Montgomery, Alabama to Muskegon, Michigan to identify lesser-known civil rights sites.

For more information about the grants and the African America Civil Rights Grant Program, please visit https://www.nps.gov/preservation-grants/civil-rights/. Applications for $15.5 million in FY2020 funding will be available in the fall of 2020.
 
Awards:

State	Projects	Grantee	Award
Alabama Birmingham	Preservation and Repair of St. Paul United Methodist Church	St. Paul United Methodist Church	$500,000
Alabama Birmingham	Rehabilitation of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Phase 4	Sixteenth Street Baptist Church	$500,000
Alabama Birmingham	Rehabilitation of the Historic Bethel Church	Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund	$345,400
Alabama Montgomery	Montgomery, Alabama Civil Rights Multiple Property Nomination	Alabama Historical Commission	$50,000
Alabama Montgomery	Freedom Rides Museum Exhibit Fabrication	Alabama Historical Commission	$50,000
Alabama Montgomery	Rehabilitation of Mount Zion A.M.E. Zion Church Memorial Annex	Mount Zion Center Foundation, Inc	$500,000
Alabama Montgomery	Preservation of the Bertha Pleasant Williams Library	Montgomery City-County Public Library	$470,601
Alabama Montgomery	Moore Building Second Floor Rehabilitation	Alabama Historical Commission	$500,000
Alabama Selma	Oral Histories: Selma's Voting Rights Women Foot Soldiers	Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church Selma AL LegacyFoundationInc	$37,000
Alabama Selma	Critical Repairs to Tabernacle Baptist Church-Phase I	Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church Selma AL LegacyFoundationInc	$500,000
Alabama Talladega	Talladega College and the Civil Rights Movement: A Watershed in History	Talladega College	$50,000
Alabama Talladega	Foster Hall Interior Rehabilitation	Talladega College	$500,000
Alabama Tuscaloosa	Preservation Planning for Sheppard Library	Stillman College	$50,000
Arkansas Little Rock	Survey and Nomination of University Park Subdivision, Little Rock, Arkansas	City of Little Rock	$35,000
Arkansas Little Rock	Taborian Hall Preservation and Access Project	Friends of Dreamland	$499,723
California Santa Ana	Summer of Civil Rights: Chronicling the Black Movement in Santa Ana, CA	Heritage Museum of Orange County	$24,830
District of Columbia	Black Power in 20th Century Washington, DC: A Context Study	DC Preservation League	$50,000
District of Columbia	‘Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round’ Documentary Film Project	Women in Film & Video, Inc.	$50,000
Florida Miami	Survey of the African American Brownsville Sub-division, Miami, FL	Dade Heritage Trust, Inc.	$50,000
Florida Yulee	Historic Structure Report for Evans' Rendezvous	Nassau County Board of County Commissioners	$28,180
Georgia Americus	Rehabilitation of the Americus Colored Hospital Phase 2	Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee, Inc	$499,697
Georgia Atlanta	Stayed on Freedom: Oral Histories of the Civil Rights Movement at Spelman College	Spelman College	$50,000
Georgia Atlanta	Restoration of the Historic West Hunter Street Baptist Church- Phase 3	Ralph David Abernathy III Foundation, Inc.	$499,980
Georgia Atlanta	Rehabilitation of Fountain (Stone) Hall	Morris Brown College	$500,000
Georgia Fort Oglethorpe	Oral History of African American WAC Battalion at Fort Oglethorpe	Friends of the 6th Cavalry Museum Inc	$28,578
Illinois Springfield	1908 Springfield, IL Race Riot Augmented Reality Ap	Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition	$50,000
Kentucky Louisville	Quinn Chapel AME Church Masonry Stabilization	Louisville Jefferson County Metropolitan Government	$500,000
Louisiana New Orleans	McDonogh 19 Historic Cafeteria, Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans	Leona Tate Foundation for Change, Inc.	$500,000
Massachusetts Great Barrington	Interpretive Exhibit Design for the Historic Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church in Great Barrington, MA.	Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, Inc.	$50,000
Michigan Detroit	Restoration of the Detroit Urban League Headquarters / Albert Kahn House	Urban League of Detroit and Southeastern Michigan	$500,000
Michigan Detroit	Rehabilitation of the Grandstands of Historic Hamtramck Stadium	Charter County of Wayne, Michigan	$490,729
Michigan Lansing	Muskegon County Historic Resource Survey	Michigan Strategic Fund	$50,000
North Carolina Charlotte	A Virtual Sense of Place: Critical Black Urbanism in Charlotte, NC	Johnson C. Smith University	$35,000
North Carolina Oxford	Rehabilitation of Mary Potter School Shop Building 76-C	National Mary Potter Club, Inc.	$500,000
North Carolina Raleigh	The Untold Stories of the Struggle for Civil Rights in the Places of Northeastern North Carolina: A Research Study	NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources	$50,000
North Carolina Raleigh	Rehabilitation of the Benbury-Frinks House	NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources	$241,940
North Carolina Salisbury	Preservation of Historic Monroe Street School	Livingstone College	$500,000
New Jersey Burlington City	William R. Allen School Rehabilitation	City of Burlington	$500,000
New Jersey Cape May City	Rehabilitation of the Franklin Street School	City of Cape May	$500,000
New York Buffalo	Michigan Street Baptist Church Protection and Rehabilitation	Buffalo Niagara Freedom Station Coalition, Inc.	$204,845
Ohio Cincinnati	Union Baptist Cemetery Historic Preservation Project	The Union Foundation	$400,000
Ohio Dayton	Adaptive Use of Summit Street Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA)	Early Visions	$500,000
Oklahoma Tulsa	Rehabilitation of the Greenwood Center Buildings in historic "Black Wall Street" Tulsa, OK	Greenwood Community Development Corporation	$500,000
South Carolina Columbia	John Henry McCray and the Role of the Black Press in the Civil Rights Movement	Allen University	$43,897
South Carolina Columbia	Booker T. Washington High School Auditorium Building Preservation Project	University of South Carolina	$500,000
South Carolina Columbia	Starks Center Rehabilitation Project	Benedict College	$500,000
South Dakota Sturgis	The Green Siblings Project: Oral Histories of the Little Rock Nine Siblings	Black Hills Special Services Cooperative	$25,000
Texas Dallas	Fair Park Hall of Negro Life Research and Discovery Project	City of Dallas	$50,000
Virginia Charlottesville	Rehabilitation of First Baptist Church	Virginia Department of Historic Resources	$240,000
West Virginia Barboursville	Historic Memphis Tennessee Garrison House Rehabilitation Project	The Carter G Woodson Memorial Foundation, Inc.	$146,100
West Virginia Charles Town	Preservation & Restoration of the First Free Black School and Star Lodge No. 1	City of Charles Town, West Virginia	$118,500
21 States	51 projects		$14,065,000

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