The City’s Historic Preservation team recently was awarded $50,000 to help protect and preserve Black history in Sacramento. The grant is funded through the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“This is a great award that will allow for the Black experience to be better understood by the whole community and shared with current and future generations of Sacramento’s residents,” said Sean de Courcy, the City’s associate preservation planner. “We are grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to working with the community to help shape the results.”
The funding will support the City’s ongoing efforts to preserve historic and cultural resources, such as African American attorney Nathaniel Colley’s former office in midtown.
Overall, the African American cultural heritage grants are supporting projects totaling $3 million that will help preserve places significant to African American communities throughout the country. More than 500 organizations applied for the grant funding, with the National Trust ultimately selecting 40 recipients throughout the United States.
To obtain the research necessary to preserve the sites, the City will be partnering with Sacramento State history students, volunteers from partner organizations and a historic consultant. These groups will be working collaboratively to gather primary and secondary source material, conduct oral histories and document individual properties associated with the Black experience in Sacramento.
The project is expected to kickoff in the August 2021 and finalize in 2022.