The National Trust names 40 historic sites as 2023 African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund grantees

A Los Angeles theater built in a Moorish Revival style, a shoe repair kiosk in a historic plaza, and a number of churches and buildings at HBCUs, are among the 40 buildings, landscapes, and sites that will receive funding through the latest round of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Since its launch in 2017 has received an unprecedented total of 5,638 funding proposals and a total request of $655 million for the restoration, repair, and operational costs of the sites. The fund has been able to support 242 grantee projects so far with its investment of $20 million. It is the largest resource dedicated to the protection and preservation of African American historic places.  In this round of grants the National Trust is dolling out a total of $3.8 million.

The 2023 Action Fund grants are separated in four categories to best support preservation efforts: Building Capital, which supports fixing up the culturally significant assets; Increasing Organizational Capacity, which allows for the hiring of staff at nonprofits; Project Planning and Development, which funds developing preservation plans, feasibility studies, and fundraising; and Programming and Education, which stewards public education and other programming at these sites.

This year’s set of grantees includes two additional categories to the grant announcement apart from the typical group of national grants. The first is the Conserving Black Modernism partnership that will also be supported by the Getty Foundation. There are eight modernist projects slated for preservation through his program, including Morgan State University’s Jenkins Hall, designed by Louis Edwin Fry, the first African American to receive a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard.

The second addition is an increased focus on support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This will be done through the Action Fund’s HBCU Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative, in which six HBCUs will receive around $700,000 to protect their cultural assets. Among the schools receiving funds are Talladega College, the first private, historically Black liberal arts college in Alabama.

“The Action Fund and the local preservationists it supports across the nation are leading crucial work to protect and promote undervalued places and stories that are an essential part of our shared American history,” said Justin Garrett Moore, program officer for the Humanities in Place program at the Mellon Foundation, in a press release. “Grants supporting projects designed by Black architects and at HBCUs will better acknowledge the power and creativity of those who have shaped and stewarded spaces and experiences that build more just communities. By elevating these places through much-needed organizational capacity, technical assistance, capital funding, and programming, these projects will help tell a fuller American story.”

The full list of grantees can be seen below while additional information can be found here.

Action Fund National Grants

Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire | Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, Inc. | Project Planning | Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Freedom Quilting Bee Manufacturing Building | Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy | Project Planning | Alberta, Alabama

Lincoln Theatre | Coalition for Responsible Community Development | Project Planning | Los Angeles

Elktonia Beach Heritage Park | Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation | Project Planning | Annapolis, Maryland

Peter Bug Shoe Academy | DC Historic Preservation Office | Project Planning | Washington D.C.

Morgan School | The Cherry Community Organization | Project Planning | Charlotte, North Carolina

Sites of Alonzo Robinson | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Project Planning | Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Idlewild’s Hotel Casa Blanca | Capital Project | 1st Neighbor | Idlewild, Michigan

Cape Charles Rosenwald School | Cape Charles Rosenwald School Restoration Initiative | Capital Project | Cape Charles, Virginia

Neosho Colored School | Carver Birthplace Association | Capital Project | Diamond, Missouri

Casa Cortijo at El Ancón de Loiza | Colectivo El Ancón de Loíza | Capital Project | San Juan, Puerto Rico

Southgate Street School | Historic Preservation Office of Newport | Capital Project | Newport, Kentucky

Henry Ossawa Tanner House | The Friends of the Tanner House and Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia | Capital Project | Philadelphia

Nantucket’s African Meeting House | Museum of African American History | Capital Project | Nantucket, Massachusetts

Menifee Gymnasium | Town of Menifee | Capital Project | Menifee, Arkansas

YMI Cultural Center | YMI Cultural Center, Inc. | Capital Project | Asheville, North Carolina

United Order of Tents Eastern District #3 | United Order of Tents Eastern District #3 | Capital Project | Brooklyn, New York

L.V. Hull Home & Studio | Keysmith Foundation | Capital Project | Kosciusko, Mississippi

The Slave Dwelling Project | The Slave Dwelling Project | Programming & Interpretation | Ladson, South Carolina

Dew Drop Inn | Level Ground | Programming & Interpretation | New Orleans

St. John’s County African American Heritage Trail | St. John’s County Cultural Council, Inc. | Programming & Interpretation | Saint Augustine, Florida

Sheridan County Iron Riders Historic Trail | Sheridan Community Land Trust | Programming & Interpretation | Sheridan, Wyoming

(Un)Known Project Augmented Reality App | IDEAS xLab | Programming & Interpretation | Louisville, Kentucky

Calfee Training School | Calfee Community & Cultural Center, Inc. | Programming & Interpretation | Pulaski, Virginia

Mount Zion Cemetery and Female Union Band Society Cemetery | Black Georgetown Foundation | Organizational Capacity Building | Washington, D.C.

Independence Heights | Independence Heights Conservancy | Organizational Capacity Building | Houston

Conserving Black Modernism

Charles McAfee Swimming Pool and Pool House | City of Wichita | Project Planning with Limited Capital Repairs | Wichita, Kansas

Watts Happening Cultural Center | City of Los Angeles | Project Planning | Los Angeles

Carson City Hall Building | City of Carson | Project Planning | Carson, California

First Baptist Church-West | First Baptist Church-West Community Services Association | Project Planning with Limited Capital Repairs | Charlotte, North Carolina

Fourth Baptist Church’s Educational Wing | Fourth Baptist Church | Project Planning with Limited Capital Repairs | Richmond, Virginia

Morgan State University’s Jenkins Hall | Morgan State University | Project Planning | Baltimore

Second Baptist Church of Detroit’s Education Building | Second Baptist Church of Detroit | Project Planning with Limited Capital Repairs | Detroit

Zion Baptist Church | Zion Baptist Church | Project Planning with Limited Capital Repairs | Philadelphia

Historically Black Colleges & Universities Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative

Morris College | Morris College | Project Planning | Sumter, South Carolina

Talladega College | Talladega College | Project Planning | Talladega, Alabama

Dillard University | Dillard University | Project Planning | New Orleans

Tuskegee University | Tuskegee University’s Department of Architecture | Project Planning | Tuskegee, Alabama

Hampton University’s Historic Landscape | Hampton University | Project Planning | Hampton, Virginia

Jarvis Christian University’s Florence Robinson Cottage | Jarvis Christian University | Project Planning | Hawkins, Texas