The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit based in D.C. that aims to protect significant historical sites, recently launched the African American Cultural Heritage Fund. The fund is part of a campaign to help support, preserve and protect important African-American sites across the nation.
The National Trust and its partners are in the process of raising $25 million for the multi-year national initiative to encourage the movement to uplift and recognize the contributions of African-Americans. The fund will restore and address the funding gaps for the preservation of African-American historic sites and help uncover hidden stories to assist in telling the full American story.
Southside Community Art Center in Chicago is one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation National Treasures. (Photo Courtesy Southside Community Art Center Archive)
Brent Leggs, the director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, said the fund was created after the series of events and protests in Charlottesville, Va. last summer. “Preservation was now at the forefront of a national conversation where history, culture, and public spaces collided, forcing our nation to confront the unfinished business of race, emancipation, and inequality,” Leggs told the AFRO. “It was evident to us at the National Trust that the human conflict witnessed by the American citizens and the world demanded national leadership. We at the National Trust felt a social and professional responsibility to help lead our country towards its moral compass and ideals.”
The goal of the fund is to also influence and empower young advocates and preservationists to conduct research on contemporary urban problems that affect underrepresented communities and communities of color, according to its website.
It is the largest preservation campaign ever undertaken on behalf of African-American history since the birth of the national preservation movement started in 1917 by the National Association of Colored Women, according to Leggs.
“A century plus later the African-American preservation movement still remains undervalued, underfunded,” Leggs told the AFRO. “The time is now through the action fund for the National Trust to play a leadership role in helping grassroots organizations and cities have access to the resources to be able to save American history.”
“We believe that historic preservation is a form of social justice,” he added. “It is a way to provide equity and resources to advocates on the ground that are working tirelessly and are committed to the preservation projects.”
Some sites the fund will directly support are Clayborn Temple in Memphis, Southside Community Art Center in Chicago and Founder’s Library at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Leggs said their vision is to also bring greater recognition to the role of Black women in history by identifying significant places that honors African-American female historical figures.
The non-profit works with the Ford Foundation, The JPB Foundation and the Open Society Foundation, among a number of leading funders. The advisory council includes notable national leaders and the co-chairs of the advisory council include acclaimed actress and director Phylicia Rashad and Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation.
“Without a thorough reckoning with the complex and difficult history of our country, especially when it comes to race, we will not be able to overcome intolerance, injustice, and inequality,” said Walker, according to a National Trust for Historic Preservation press release. “We have an opportunity with this fund to broaden the American narrative to reflect our remarkably rich and diverse history.”