About the Network

Myrlie Evers, Mississippi civil rights activist, pictured after her husband, Medgar Ever's assassination in 1963.

National Park Service

Congress has not reauthorized the African American Civil Rights Network (AACRN) program, which expired on January 8, 2025. Therefore, the program is not currently accepting applications, logo usage requests, etc.

For general NPS Park History Program inquiries related to African American history, please contact Ashley Adams, Staff Civil Rights Historian.

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The African American Civil Rights Network is a collection of properties, facilities, and programs that offer a comprehensive overview of the people, places, and events associated with the African American Civil Rights movement. The Network is an opportunity to ensure that the history of the civil rights movement and the sacrifices made by those who fought for its cause are being told and commemorated.

Establishment
The Network was established through the African American Civil Rights Network Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-104) sponsored by Congressman William Lacy Clay and signed into law by President Donald J. Trump in January 2018. The Network was created to serve as official recognition for the people, places, and events involved in the modern struggle for African American civil rights. In addition to instructing the National Park Service to coordinate the addition of sites to the Network, the Act also provided for the production of educational materials and the creation of an official logo.

Types of Network Members
There were three (3) types of resources that could be designated as Network members - properties, facilities, and programs.

• A property was the physical location of an event or pattern of events, or a location associated with a significant individual or group. For instance, the home of Medgar and Myrlie Evers is a Property; so is the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
• A facility was a location that may or may not have been standing during the specified time period, but that was dedicated to collecting and interpreting the history of the movement during that time. Examples include (but are not limited to) an archive, a library, or a museum.
• A program could be a tour, performance, educational curriculum, website, art installation, or other way that the history of African American civil rights was presented or explained to the public.

Criteria for Inclusion in the Network

• A verifiable connection to the African American civil rights movement. In addition, properties had to be directly associated with a person or event in the movement at the time. All properties also had to either be listed in, or eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (this did not apply to facilities and programs).
• Facilities and programs could meet the criterion through their interpretive or educational activities that sought to engage the public in learning about the movement.
• Finally, for any proposed addition to the Network, permission of the owner was required.

National Park Service units that sought inclusion in the Network had two additional criteria:

1. Be listed in, or eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.
2. Relate to the African American civil rights movement during the period from 1939 through 1968.

Designation as a Network Member
From 2017-2024 the NPS reviewed applications for Network eligibility on a rolling basis throughout the year and new additions to the Network were announced approximately every few months. AACRN was not competitive; all properties, facilities, and programs that met the criteria were added to the Network, and were eligible to use the program logo in limited fashion, with permission.