News Release

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

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

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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 20^th 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

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