News Release

National Park Service awards $16.2M to help preserve African American civil rights history

A vacant stadium with curved cement bleachers extending out and to the left.
Ongoing restoration of Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, NJ, former recipient of an African American Civil Rights Grant; Hinchliffe Stadium is the only historic stadium within a national park

NPS / Stephanie Roulett

News Release Date: May 11, 2022

Contact: NewsMedia@nps.gov

 

WASHINGTON – Following a tour of Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey, National Park Service (NPS) Director Chuck Sams announced the award of $16,247,500 in African American Civil Rights grants. Listed as a National Historic Landmark, Hinchcliffe Stadium is one of a few surviving Negro League baseball stadiums and previously received an African American Civil Rights Grant in 2018. This years’ awards will benefit 44 projects in 15 states and support the continued preservation of sites and history related to the African American struggle for equality.
“The African American Civil Rights grants are critical to helping preserve and interpret a more comprehensive narrative of the people, places, and events associated with African American Civil Rights movement. Sites like Hinchliffe Stadium are rare, and they provide a tangible reminder of this complex history. It was exciting to see the ongoing preservation work at a site that bore witness to more than 20 baseball Hall of Famers in its time and has inspired generations to follow in the footsteps of their heroes,” said NPS Director Chuck Sams   

The African American Civil Rights grants fund a variety of projects from rehabilitation to oral history documentation, in coordination with state, Tribal, local government, and nonprofit partners. The rehabilitation project at Hinchliffe Stadium, was funded in part by this grant program and is expected to reopen to the public later this year.   

This years’ grants will support the preservation of the Masjid al-Ansar in Miami, the first mosque in Florida, which records the story of how Black Muslims were instrumental in the civil rights campaigns in the Deep South; the Schooner Clotilda in Mobile, Alabama, the last known ship to import enslaved Africans to the United States; and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, funds will help tell the rich stories of the African American struggle for equality through oral histories of Selma’s foot soldiers and those with personal and family connections to Greenwood Avenue or “Black Wall Street”.  

Applications for $21.7 million in FY2022 funding will be available in late summer 2022. Learn more about the African American Civil Rights grant program, and how to apply for future grants on NPS.gov.   African American Civil Rights Grant Awards 

 

State 

City 

Project 

Grantee 

Award 

Alabama 

Birmingham 

Preservation, Restoration, and Repair of St Paul United Methodist Church 

St Paul United Methodist Church 

$500,000 

Alabama 

Birmingham 

The BBRM Permanent Exhibit at the Carver Theatre 

Birmingham Black Radio Museum 

$50,000 

Alabama 

Hope Hull 

 

Tankersley Rosenwald School: Stabilization and Exterior Rehabilitation 

Auburn University 

$499,799 

Alabama 

Mobile 

 

Stabilization and Preservation of the Schooner Clotilda (1Ba704), the Last-known Slave Ship to Import Enslaved Africans to the United States. 

Alabama Historical Commission 

$469,500 

Alabama 

Montgomery 

 

The Rehabilitation of Mount Zion A.M.E. Zion Church Memorial Annex 

Mount Zion Center Foundation, Inc. 

$500,000 

Alabama 

 

Montgomery 

Freedom Rides Museum Interior Exhibit Plan - Phase 3 

Alabama Historical Commission 

$50,000 

Alabama 

 

Montgomery 

The Civil Engineering of the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery, Alabama: The Planned Destruction of a Prosperous African American Community 

City of Montgomery 

$50,000 

Alabama 

Selma 

 

Memory and the March: Oral Histories with Selma's Foot Soldiers 

Auburn University 

$46,588 

Alabama 

Selma 

 

Preservation of Endangered Historic Brown Chapel AME Church 

Historic Brown Chapel AME Church Preservation Society Inc 

$500,000 

Alabama 

 

Selma 

 

Critical Systems and Accessibility Upgrades to Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church 

Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church Selma AL Legacy Foundation, Inc. 

$500,000 

Alabama 

 

Selma 

 

Rehabilitation of the Historic Sullivan Building for use as a Community and Culture Center 

Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation 

$499,521 

District of Columbia 

 

Black Women Suffrage in Washington, DC: A Context Study 

DC Preservation League 

$50,000 

Florida 

Miami 

 

Rehabilitating, Nominating, and Establishing the Black Muslim Contribution to American Civil Rights through Masjid al-Ansar in Miami, the First Mosque in Florida 

The East West Foundation 

$444,165 

Florida 

Miami 

 

Phase 2 Rehabilitation of Ace Theater, a "Jim Crow" Theater 

Ace Theater Foundation, Inc. 

$500,000 

Florida 

Saint Augustine 

 

Exhibition on the St. Augustine Civil Rights Movement and Wade-ins 

St. Johns Cultural Council, Inc 

$50,000 

Georgia 

Americus 

 

Rehabilitation of the Historic Campbell AME Chapel 

Historic Campbell Chapel Restoration Project Inc 

$499,128 

Georgia 

Americus 

 

Rehabilitation of the Historic Americus Colored Hospital Phase 3 

Americus Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee, Inc 

$499,488 

Georgia 

Atlanta 

 

Rehabilitation and Preservation of the Historic West Hunter Street Baptist Church Phase 5, Home Church of Dr. Ralph David Abernathy 

Ralph David Abernathy III Foundation, Inc. 

$499,232 

Georgia 

 

Atlanta 

 

English Avenue School Emergency Stabilization 

Atlanta Preservation Center Inc. 401 

$500,000 

Georgia 

 

Atlanta 

 

Rehabilitation of Residence of Grace Towns Hamilton 

Preserve Black Atlanta, Inc. 

$500,000 

Georgia 

 

Atlanta 

 

Rehabilitation of Residence of George Alexander Towns 

Preserve Black Atlanta 

$500,000 

Georgia 

Marietta 

 

Rehabilitation of the Historic Girard Elementary School 

WGS 3.0 Inc 

$499,488 

Georgia 

Woodville 

 

Rehabilitation of the Georgia B. Williams Nursing Home 

Georgia B. Williams Nursing Home Inc. 

$469,014 

Illinois 

Chicago 

 

Rehabilitation of the Bronzeville Historic Wabash YMCA 

The Renaissance Collaborative, Inc. 

$436,375 

Kansas 

Topeka 

 

St. Mark's Church Rehabilitation - Phase 2 

St. Mark's AME Church 

$489,800 

Kentucky 

Louisville 

 

Quinn Chapel AME Church Stabilization - Phase 3 

Louisville Jefferson County Metropolitan Government 

$500,000 

Kentucky  

 

Russellville 

 

Documenting the Places and Civil Rights Contributions of Alice Allison Dunnigan, the First Woman of African American Heritage to Cover White House, Congressional and Supreme Court Press Briefings 

Historic Russellville Inc. DBA Seek Museum 

$23,669 

Maryland 

St. Leonard 

 

Witnesses of Wallville: Documenting a Rural Southern Maryland Community through Oral Histories 

Maryland Historical Trust/JPPM 

$49,742 

Mississippi 

Holly Springs 

 

Rehabilitation of Carnegie Auditorium on Mississippi Industrial College Campus 

Rust College 

$500,000 

Mississippi 

Jackson 

 

The Riverside Hotel Rehabilitation Project 

Mississippi Heritage Trust 

$499,500 

North Carolina 

Oxford 

 

Rehabilitation of Mary Potter School Shop Building 

National Mary Potter Club, Inc. 

$500,000 

North Carolina 

Raleigh 

 

Rehabilitation of Leonard Hall 

Shaw University 

$500,000 

New Jersey 

Atlantic City 

 

Rehabilitation of the Indiana Avenue Firehouse 

City of Atlantic City 

$500,000 

Oklahoma 

Tulsa 

 

Masonry Repair for the Historic Greenwood "Black Wall Street" Buildings 

Greenwood Community Development Corporation 

$412,465 

Oklahoma 

Tulsa 

 

Oral Histories from Greenwood, Tulsa, and the 13 Oklahoma Black Townships 

Greenwood Community Development Corporation 

$43,365 

South Carolina 

Charleston 

 

Mapping Charleston's Black Burial Grounds 

Preservation Society of Charleston 

$50,000 

South Carolina 

Columbia 

 

The Alston House Rehabilitation Project 

Magnolia Blossom SC 

$318,645 

South Carolina 

Columbia 

 

Rehabilitation of the Booker T. Washington High School Auditorium Building 

University of South Carolina 

$500,000 

South Carolina 

Columbia 

 

Morgan Hall Rehabilitation Project Phase 2 

Benedict College 

$500,000 

South Carolina 

Georgetown 

 

Historic Sandy Island School House Rehabilitation 

Georgetown County Government 

$408,440 

South Carolina 

West Columbia 

 

Interior Rehabilitation and Adaptive Reuse of the Former Lakeview School 

Brookland Center for Community Economic Change 

$499,576 

Tennessee 

Memphis 

 

Collins Chapel Rehabilitation 

Collins Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church 

$500,000 

Tennessee 

Memphis 

 

Memphis Heritage Trail: Youth and Civil Rights Summer Camp 

City of Memphis-Division of Housing and Community Development 

$50,000 

Virginia 

Richmond 

 

Stabilization of the Cumberland County Pine Grove Rosenwald School 

AMMD Pine Grove Project 

$290,000 

  Congress appropriated funding for the African American Civil Rights Grant Program in FY2021 through the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). The HPF uses revenue from federal oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf, assisting with a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars, with the intent to mitigate the loss of a nonrenewable resource to benefit the preservation of other irreplaceable resources. 

Established in 1977, the HPF is authorized at $150 million per year through 2023 and has provided more than $2.7 billion in historic preservation grants to states, Tribes, local governments, and nonprofit organizations. Administered by the NPS, HPF funds may be appropriated by Congress to support a variety of historic preservation projects to help preserve the nation’s cultural resources. 

Learn more about NPS historic preservation programs and grants.

www.nps.gov 

About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 423 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov, and on FacebookInstagramTwitter, and YouTube



Last updated: June 15, 2022