Through support from the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation has recently bestowed $3 million worth of grant funding to 24 projects across the country that center on Black joy, resilience, innovation, and activism. Eight of these grants have gone to higher education institutions.
Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia, has received funding to preserve two historically African American cemeteries located on the college’s campus. The sites are all that remain of the Reconstruction-era Freemantown and Shelton Family settlements founded by formerly enslaved people in Mount Berry from 1870 to the 1920s.
Florida A&M University will use their funds to develop a preservation plan for Gibbs Cottage, the oldest remaining structure from the HBCU’s founding in 1887. The cottage was the home of Thomas Gibbs, a Black Florida state legislator who introduced the bill that established the institution.
The board of trustees at the University of Illinois is leading a project to share the history of the local Brooklyn, Illinois, area, one of the earliest freedom settlements in the United States. After decades of redevelopment, Brooklyn was in danger of being lost and put on the Landmarks Illinois Most Endangered Places List in 2023. The new funds from the National Trust for Historic Preservation will support community-based archaeological programming.
Oregon State University has received a grant in support of the Letitia Carson Legacy Project. Carson was born into slavery in Kentucky between 1814 and 1818. She emigrated to Oregon with her husband in 1845, where they owned a 680-acre homestead in the Soap Creek Valley. The OSU project aims to document her history and that of the earliest generation of Black settlers in Oregon.
The Custom House at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, was originally home to Thomas Ringgold, one of Maryland’s most infamous slave trading agents. It later became the site of a major civil rights victory when Josephine Carr, a free Black woman, won a lawsuit forcing the integration of Maryland’s steamboats and other public transportation. The new funds will support descendent-led work to expand interpretation, placemaking, and preservation that will engage the community and visitors with the house’s full history.
The Interdenominational Theological Center, a historically Black graduate school of theology in Atlanta, will use their new grant to assess the condition and preserve the history of the institution’s administration building, the oldest facility on campus. Completed in 1961, the building was designed by Edward C. Miller, the first licensed Black architect in the state of Georgia.
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, has received funding to support a facilities management and preservation plan at the 2500 New Hackensack Building. The building was designed by Jeh Vincent Johnson, co-founder of the National Organization of Minority Architects. The preservation plan aims to support deeper engagement with and interpretation of Johnson’s legacy on campus.
The University of Oregon will leverage their new grant to develop a preservation and interpretation plan for McKenzie Hall. The building was designed by DeNorval Unthank Jr., the first Black graduate of the university’s architecture school. The grant funds will be used to install an interpretive display in the building in recognition of Unthank’s contributions.
