The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, recently announced $3 million in grant funding to protect and preserve 30 sites representing Black history. Houston’s Yates Museum is one of those sites.
With more than $140 million raised since its founding in 2017, the Action Fund is the largest resource dedicated to the preservation of African American historic places. The Action Fund has supported 304 Black heritage sites with a total investment of $27M since 2018.
“The National Grant Program represents the Action Fund’s enduring commitment to telling the full American story – one that makes room for Black resilience, creativity, and achievement,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. “History is crucial to our nation’s understanding of where we’ve come from, who we are today, and how we envision our future. These grants will support critical preservation efforts to revitalize and sustain tangible links to our shared past that we hope will inspire future generations.”
With amounts ranging from $50K to $150K, this year’s Action Fund grants will support preservation efforts across four categories:
● Building Capital: Supporting the restoration and rehabilitation of cultural assets important to Black History
● Increasing Organizational Capacity: Providing leadership staff positions within nonprofits stewarding Black heritage sites
● Project Planning and Development: Funding planning activities tied to the development of preservation plans, feasibility studies, historic site reports, National Register designations, and fundraising
● Programming and Education: Advancing storytelling through public education, exhibits, and creative interpretation
This year’s awardees include the second round of Conserving Black Modernism grants, a program designed to protect and promote the work of African American architects. These sites will receive $1.2 million in preservation funding through the Action Fund with support from the Getty Foundation.
Houston’s Simms/Gray-Lewis Cottage / Rutherford B.H Yates Museum is the only site in Texas included in this year’s round of funding.
Isabella Simms, a Black woman and domestic servant, purchased the lots at 1216 and 1218 Wilson St. in Houston just nine years after the Civil War ended. In 1907, Lincoln R. Jones, a Black contractor, designed and built what would come to be known as the Simms/Gray-Lewis Cottage, named for its owners. Today, this structure is a city-designated protected landmark.
Funding will support its rehabilitation as a gift shop, gallery and tour office for Freedmen’s Town Houston.
“Preserving African American culture is central to preserving and understanding American culture writ large,” said Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Mellon Foundation. “This new suite of Action Fund grants will provide crucial financial and strategic support to sites that further illuminate the Black voices and visions that make up our shared American past. We at Mellon are pleased to support this effort to ensure that all of us can continue to learn and experience these essential histories in our public spaces.”
