News Release

National Park Service Announces $12.2 Million in Grants to Preserve African American Civil Rights History

Four people looking at an exhibit at the world’s only soul music museum
Awarded an AACR grant in 2016, the Soulsville Foundation is a nonprofit organization that operates the world’s only soul music museum, at the original site of Stax Records. The Soulsville Foundation focuses on music education, preservation, and promotion.

Photo courtesy of the Soulsville Foundation, Memphis, TN, 2016.

News Release Date: September 13, 2019

Contact: NewsMedia@nps.gov

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.

Projects receiving an African American Civil Rights grants include:

State

Projects

Grantee

Award

Alabama
Auburn

Edmund Pettus Bridge: Historic Structures Report
 

Auburn University

$50,000

Alabama
Birmingham

Rehabilitation of St. Paul United Methodist Church
 

St. Paul United Methodist Church

$500,000

Alabama
Birmingham

Preservation and Rehabilitation of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church: Phase 3
 

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

$500,000

Alabama
Birmingham

Rehabilitation of the Historic Bethel Church Parsonage
 

Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund
 

$258,209

Alabama
Marion

Stabilization and Roof Replacement of the Historic Lincoln Normal School Gymnasium: Phase 1
 

Lincolnite Club, Inc.

$500,000

Alabama
Montgomery

Rehabilitation of the Historic Moore Building: Phase 2
 

Alabama Historical Commission

$500,000

Alabama
Montgomery

Freedom Rides Museum Exhibit Plan
 

Alabama Historical Commission

$50,000

Alabama
Selma

Rehabilitation of the Amelia Boynton Residence
 

Gateway Educational Foundation, Inc. & Brown Chapel AME Church
 

$500,000

Alabama
Selma

Preservation of Historic Brown Chapel: Phase 3

Brown Chapel AME Historical Preservation Foundation
 

$500,000

Alabama
Selma

Oral Histories of the Untold Tabernacle Story
 

Tabernacle Baptist Church – Selma, AL Legacy Foundation, Inc.
 

$37,950

Alabama
Selma

Tabernacle Baptist Church: Historic Structure Report and Stained Glass Assessment
 

Tabernacle Baptist Church –Legacy Foundation, Inc.

$50,000

Alabama
Tuskegee

TISEP/TICEP: History and Impact
 

Tuskegee University

$50,000

Arkansas
Little Rock

Rehabilitation of Central High School: Phase 3
 

Little Rock School District

$499,582

Connecticut
Hartford

Survey of Connecticut’s Southern Students Work Projects During the Early Civil Rights Movement
 

Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development

$30,000

Kentucky
Frankfort

March on Frankfort: Oral History Project
 

City on Frankfort

$50,000

Florida
St. Augustine

Preservation of Excelsior High School Building

Friends of Lincolnville, Inc.

$500,000

Georgia
Americus
 

Rehabilitation of the Americus Colored Hospital

Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered

$494,880

Georgia
Atlanta

Fountain (Stone) Hall Rehabilitation Project
 

Morris Brown College

$500,000

Louisiana
New Orleans

New Orleans African American Civil Rights Movement Traveling Exhibition
 

Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation, Inc.

$50,000

Louisiana
Shreveport

Rehabilitation of Old Galilee Missionary Baptist Church
 

City of Shreveport

$500,000

Michigan
Lansing

King Solomon Church Roof Replacement

Michigan State Housing Development Authority
 

$500,000

New York
Mount Vernon

The African-American Civil Rights and Women’s Suffrage Experience in Mount Vernon, NY: Identifying, Evaluating and Nominating Historic People, Sites, Events and Locations
 

City of Mount Vernon

$50,000
 
 
       

North Carolina
Charlotte

Freedom Fighters of the West End: Research and Interpretation of Charlotte’s Historic West End Civil Rights Activists
 

Johnson C. Smith University

$49,741

North Carolina
Elizabeth City
 

Restoration of the Northeastern North Carolina African American Research and Cultural Heritage Center
 

Elizabeth City State University

$498,872
 

North Carolina
Fayetteville

Interpreting the Historical Significance of the Briggs v. Elliot (1952) Case in the African American Civil Rights Movement
 

Scotts Branch High Alumni Association, Inc.

$50,000

North Carolina
Raleigh

Rehabilitation of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown State Historic Site
 

North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources

$481,150

North Carolina
Raleigh

Restoration of Southern Railway Car No. 1211, a Jim Crow era segregated car
 

North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources

$287,442

Ohio
Cleveland

Developing African American Civil Rights Trail in Cleveland
 

Cleveland Restoration Society

$50,000

Oregon
Portland

Restoration of the Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church
 

Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church

$350,000

Pennsylvania
Hinsonville

Rehabilitation of the Lincoln University Heritage Center in Hinsonville
 

Lincoln University of Pennsylvania

$500,000

South Carolina
Charleston

Rehabilitation of the Pine Tree Hotel on Mosquito Beach, James Island
 

Historic Charleston Foundation

$490,861

South Carolina
Columbia
 

“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

$37,088

South Carolina
Columbia

Reinterpretation of the Modjeska Monteith Simkins House in Columbia
 

Historic Columbia Foundation

$49,500

South Carolina
Orangeburg

Rehabilitation of the Historic Trinity United Methodist Church: Phase 2
 

Trinity United Methodist Church

$500,000

South Carolina
St. 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.

$50,000

Texas
Dallas

Rehabilitation of the Juanita Craft Civil Rights House and Memorial Garden
 

City of Dallas

$500,000

Texas
Marshall

Classroom Culture in the Ark-La-Tex: Locating, Tecording, and Publicizing the African-American Civil Rights Stories of Ark-La-Tex
 

Bishop Blue

$50,000

Virginia
Gordonsville
 

Rehabilitation of St. John Rosenwald School

St. John Family Life and Fitness Center, Inc.

$75,000

Virginia
Hampton

Rehabilitation of the Thomas C. Walker House
 

Hampton University

$104,000

Virginia
Lynchburg

Rehabilitation of the Mary Jane Cachelin Science and Library Building
 

Virginia University of Lynchburg

$483,850

Virginia
Lynchburg
 

Rehabilitation of Graham Hall

Virginia University of Lynchburg

$50,000

Virginia
Richmond

Rehabilitation of Third Street Bethel AME Church, Richmond: Phase 3
 

Virginia Department of Historic Resources

$400,000

Virginia
Richmond

Restoration of Virginia Union University’s Belgian Building for its Associations with the African American Civil Rights Movement
 

Virginia Union University

$500,000

West Virginia
Huntington

Civil Rights Era Stories of African Americans in Appalachia
 

Marshall University Research Cooperation

$30,875

17 states

 

44 projects

$12,259,000

 

www.nps.gov 


About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 419 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Visit us at www.nps.gov, on Facebook www.facebook.com/nationalparkservice, Twitter www.twitter.com/natlparkservice, and YouTube www.youtube.com/nationalparkservice.

 



Last updated: September 13, 2019