2024 African American Experience and Dynamic Preservation Grants Awarded
Macon, Georgia
The 1772 Foundation announces four grant recipients.
At a quarterly meeting, trustees of The 1772 Foundation, based in Macon, Georgia, awarded five grants totaling $248,192. Individual grants ranged in amount from $25,000 to $100,000. Awards were made in two granting categories: African American Experience and Dynamic Preservation.
African American Experience Grants
The 1772 Foundation continues its support for organizations endeavoring to document and preserve African American heritage and contributions in the United States. In its first grant round of the year, the foundation awarded grants to two such organizations. Since 2020, Black History in Action for Cambridgeport (Massachusetts) has been collaborating with members of St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church to safeguard the church property, undertake the architectural restoration of the church, and reactivate it as a thriving Black community space. BHAC received a grant of $62, 492, the last funding needed to complete the fourth and final phase of the building’s preservation and adaptive reuse. The Cecil William South Carolina Civil Rights Museum (Orangeburg) was awarded $25,000 to tell the unknown story of Briggs v. Elliott, the first case in the twentieth century to challenge the constitutionality of racially segregated schools. It was one of five cases collectively entitled Brown v. Board of Education, decided 70 years ago on May 17, 1954. Funding from The 1772 Foundation will support a series of symposiums in five South Carolina cities.
Dynamic Preservation:
Under the umbrella of dynamic preservation, The 1772 Foundation funds innovative projects and proposals designed to achieve change. Year to date, three awards have been made in this category to two organizations. Main Street America, longtime 1772 partner and grantee, received $35,000 to support its annual Main Street Now Conference, this year held in Birmingham, Alabama. The 1772 Foundation also provided Main Street America with $100,000 to help with startup costs for a new initiative, the National Trust Loan Fund (Washington, DC), still in the development stage. The fund will support high impact/high quality, small-scale adaptive reuse projects in need of low cost capital in communities across the country.
Preservation Maryland will use its $25,250 grant to develop an action plan for implementing a recruitment and mentorship program to support diverse recruitment within the field of historic preservation. Following plan implementation, the Diverse Recruitment Pipeline will result in a replicable program, which can be adopted and utilized by other preservation organizations.
Ethiel Garlington, executive director of The 1772 Foundation, says, “It is exciting and rewarding to see our grantees expand their programs in innovative, equitable, and sustainable ways. We look forward to their successes.”