Article • Historic Preservation Fund Grant Success Stories

African American Civil Rights Grant Projects

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church FY16 African American Civil Rights — Repairing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama -- Preservation, Repair and Restoration of the Historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

The African American Civil Rights (AACR) Grant Program provides funding to projects that seek to document, interpret, and preserve sites and stories related to the African American struggle to gain equal rights as citizens during the 20th Century. This competitive grant program provides grants to states, tribes, local governments, and nonprofits.

AACR grants fund a broad range of planning, development, and research projects for historic sites including: survey, inventory, documentation, interpretation, education, architectural services, historic structure reports, preservation plans, and "bricks and mortar" repair. The related People and Places articles listed here show examples of projects that have been funded and successfully completed through this program since its inception.

AACR Success Stories

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St. John Rosenwald School
The St. John Family Life and Fitness Center received two African American Civil Rights Grants from the National Park Service, which supported the rehabilitation of the former Rosenwald School. Work included foundation stabilization, installation of a heating and cooling system, plumbing, insulation, and electrical. The now completed project serves as an example of how a former school can successfully be preserved and adapted to a new use for the community as a fitness center.
Louisiana: Leona Tate Foundation for Change
Founded in 2009, the Leona Tate Foundation for Change advances the legacy of Ms. Leona Tate, who helped desegregate a white school in the New Orleans Public School District in 1960. The foundation has dedicated itself to providing equal access educational opportunities for youth in New Orleans, and creating an interpretive space in which to teach New Orleans’ rich civil rights history.