Support equitable historical preservation.
TAKE ACTION
Identify a local grassroots organization in your community committed to preserving historical sites. What are they working on now? What have they protected? What have they lost?
Research to find the closest national historic preservation site to your address using this interactive map. What is it, and whose story is being told? Share your findings with a friend.
Learn more about the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, launched by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
Earlier this month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NHPA) issued more than $3 million in grant funding to preserve forty Black American historic sites across the U.S (Saving Places). This funding will help everything from capacity building to programming, ensuring these spaces won’t get lost. The sites include the Emmett Till’s funeral home in Chicago, the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh, the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Ohio, and the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center in Denver. You can read a complete list here. This funding is especially significant considering the vast racial disparity in historic sites deemed worth preserving.
Since its founding, the NHPA has identified nearly two million locations worthy of preservation. The work of preservation, as a result, has generated an estimated two million jobs and more than a hundred billion dollars in private investments. However, most of the spaces identified cater to white history, not the stories of people of color. Preservation work by the federal government was started to protect Confederate battlefields, cemeteries, and burial sites after the Civil War (New Yorker). In addition, wealthier white communities disproportionately benefit from these initiatives: the areas tend to be in white neighborhoods, and the majority of the jobs go to white people (EJI). Because one of the criteria for preservation is architectural significance, the process tends to overvalue ornate buildings, not modest structures like slave cabins and tenement houses, or sites that might not have structures, like farms, slave auctions, and burial sites (New Yorker). Related: many of these preservation sites are gatekeeping lands stewarded by Indigenous communities. Learn more in another newsletter.
The civil rights movement of the past decade has accelerated efforts to maintain and preserve historic sites for people of color. Simultaneously, it’s scrutinized the number of Confederate monuments and sites currently under preservation. This is necessary work to both balance the preservation of our nation’s history and reckon with how centering the Confederacy influenced recent racial attacks and dissent. The decision to remove the Robert F. Lee statue in Charlottesville, VA sparked the deadly white nationalist riot in 2017 (Forbes). Dylann Roof named the Confederacy as inspiration for the violence he inflicted in 2015 (AJC). Images of the Confederate flag in the Capitol during the insurrection this January unnerved everyday citizens and historians alike (NYTimes). Preserving our history needs to be not just equitable but aligned with the safety and security our citizens deserve.
Broad and sweeping financial donations often get the credit for preserving historical sites, but in reality, many of the historical landmarks for people of color are preserved because of grassroots organizing by local and everyday people. Without their efforts to protect this land, it’s likely that these sites wouldn’t be here today to receive funding at all. Consider how Preservation Chicago mobilized to gather over thirty thousand signatures to protect the home of Emmett Till’s family for its use as a museum (change.org). Or how local activists have been fighting to preserve one of the nation’s largest slave auction sites from multiple developments in Savannah, GA (Savannah Now). Right now, the Bedford Church African Burial Ground Coalition is trying to protect an enslaved African burial ground from becoming a housing project (PRISM). And the Robert F. Lee statue mentioned above was finally removed earlier this year. But, the conversations were started by Zyahna Bryant, who was just 15-years-old when she started a petition in 2016 (Teen Vogue). In the absence of city, state, or federal support – and often governmental opposition – brave individuals of color have ensured their rich and diverse history won’t be forgotten.
This is especially important when considering the current baseless attack on American history happening in schools and institutions. If children won’t see these stories in their history books, it matters to have them acknowledged physically in their communities. Hopefully, institutional recognition for federal sites isn’t just a trend, but a lasting commitment to our past.
Key Takeaways
The National Trust for Historic Preservation dedicated $3 million to preserve 40 Black historic sites.
It’s often grassroots organizers who preserve historic landmarks for people of color.
As conservatives ban teaching the truth about American history, it’s more important than ever to preserve historic landmarks that highlight our shared past.