historic preservation

Progress Digitizing the Johnson Publishing Archive, a Vast Resource in African American History

Kara Olidge of the Getty Research Institute says making millions of images from the publishing company behind Ebony and Jet magazines accessible will help people to learn about Black history even if state legislatures restrict teaching it in schools. 

The National Trust Must Update its Idea of What Makes History and Speak in Multiple Voices

by Neil MacGregor

Neither preserving sites of national glory nor stripping them of honor represents the true mission of the National Trust as a preserver of British history for the public. 

Can Virginia Preserve the Sites of "Green Book" Travel from the Jim Crow Era?

A new law in Virginia would declare the sites promoted as safe and welcoming for Black travelers in a widely-circulated travel guide from the segregation era to be historic and worthy of protection against development. 

Gullah Geechee of Sea Islands Fight for their Post-Slavery Legacy

by DeNeen L Brown

The Gullah Geechee people were chosen for enslavement in the Sea Islands because of their experience cultivating rice in Africa, and maintained a distinctive culture with strong African elements through slavery and emancipation. Development and gentrification threaten that legacy today. 

Black History Month Traces to a Key Meeting in a Chicago YMCA

Chicago historian Shermann Thomas, aka "Dilla," makes the Wabash Avenue YMCA where educator Carter Woodson was inspired to launch Negro Achievement Week a centerpiece of his guided tours of Black Chicago's history. 

The HistoryMakers: Preserving Untold Stories of African American Achievement

60 Minutes covers a nonprofit group working to preserve and document Black American history. Julieanna Richardson's team has conducted, transcribed and posted more than 3,500 oral history interviews. 

Even In Death, Black Americans Denied Dignified Rest

by Greg Melville

Lacking legal protection, historic African American cemeteries face serious threats from neglect and redevelopment. 

An Unlikely Coalition Trying to Save a Nashville Black Landmark

A Nashville Elks lodge building was the 1960s home of a music club where superstars of Black music—and the yet-to-be famous Jimi Hendrix—played during the segregation era. Like many such landmarks, decades of highway building broke up the surrounding community and made the building endangered today. 

Nashville's Historic Woolworth Building is in Trouble

America faces a choice between preserving the sites of its civil rights history within the evolving fabric of cities and towns, or erecting more plaques explaining what happened in the buildings that used to be there.

Two Brothers Pushed the National Historic Landmark Program to Include Black History

Although there are dozens of dedicated landmarks to African American history today, the activism of the DeForrest brothers to push the National Park Service toward inclusion has been forgotten. 

8 Sites Illuminating African American History Show the Need for Preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working against time and redevelopment to prevent the loss of key sites of African American history across the nation. So far the project has helped protect a museum of the Buffalo Soldiers, Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, and Louis Armstrong's house in Queens, among other sites. 

Stanley Nelson Lauded for Work Preserving Records of Violence Against Civil Rights Workers

Nelson wrote two books on "cold cases" linked to Klan activity in Louisiana and Mississippi. 

The Hidden History of Black Coal Towns

The New River Gorge is one of the newest National Parks. Beyond natural beauty, the region allows visitors to learn the history of African American coal miners and their communities in West Virginia. 

Landmark Building Embodies Past and Present of DC's Black Community

The True Reformer Building in Washington is likely the first in the nation to be designed, funded, built and owned by African Americans as part of a comprehensive mission of economic and social self-reliance and uplift in the early 20th century. 

New Approach at Montpelier: Let All Voices Rise

After a controversial battle over how to incorporate the descendants of people enslaved by James Madison, Montpelier is beginning to highlight artifacts—and the process of discovering them—related to the lives of enslaved people at the estate. 

Airbnb Listings Latest Case of Trivializing, Commercializing Slave Cabins

Preservationists like Joseph McGill Jr., founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, say the commercialization of plantation sites has been happening for decades. 

Remembering David McCullough Off the Page, as a Champion of Preservation

by Richard Moe

Having known the late David McCullough through his work advocating historic preservation, the author says McCullough lived a maxim of John Adams he often quoted: while he achieved success, he was more driven to work to deserve it.

Climate Change Just Erased the Past in Kentucky. Where Will it Happen Next?

by Tina A. Irvine

The archives of the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County were inundated by flood waters on July 28—a devastating loss of one community's history and culture, and a warning to historians that our knowledge of the past is at risk from climate change. 

Montpelier Board Appoints 11 Members from Descendants Committee

The move may finally deliver on the board's promise to grant parity in the governance of the James Madison estate to the descendants of persons enslaved at Montpelier. 

Is Historic Preservation Ruining American Cities?

by Jacob Anbinder

Historic preservation laws often have a loose relationship to the actual historic significance of buildings, and an even looser relationship to the interests of cities in meeting their residents' social needs.