Black Preservation Stories

What does it mean not only to preserve a historic home, but to sustain a tradition of Black creativity, reflection, and renewal? In Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Five Acres—the home and writing cabin of poet, diplomat, NAACP leader, and “National Hymn” author James Weldon Johnson—served as a retreat from the demands of public life. Johnson’s “National Hymn,” later widely known as “Lift Every Vo...

How can historic sites draw on the Revolutionary War and the often-overlooked role of Black participants to create meaningful conversations about race and historical memory in the present? April 20, Massachusetts commemorates Patriot’s Day—marking the 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord that ignited the American Revolution. It also marks the seasonal reopening of the Robbins House Museum (@robbi...

What does it take to preserve a Black not only a historic site—but as a living architecture of belonging, refuge, and enduring Black presence? This episode centers on the A.M.E. Zion Church of Kingston, founded in 1848 and the oldest continuously active African American congregation in Ulster County, New York. Established in resistance to racial exclusion within white Methodist congregations, the...

What has been lost with the erosion of Black community-based maternal care traditions? How might recovering the history of Black midwifery and cultural knowledge inform how we understand reproductive justice today? Scott Ford Houses, Inc. in Jackson, Mississippi—founded in 1995—preserves two 1890s homes in the Farish Street Historic District, built by formerly enslaved Mary Greene Scott and later...

BGHPN continues Season 2 with a special feature on preservationist Althemese Pemberton Barnes, whose work reshaped how Tallahassee, Florida, remembers its past. In 1987, through grassroots organizing and public advocacy, Barnes helped lead the restoration of Greenwood Cemetery, the city’s historic African American burial ground. That effort soon extended to another endangered landmark: the Riley H...

What is lost when people treat dolls as toys rather than artifacts-and what becomes possible when they are interpreted as material culture? The National Black Doll Museum of History & Culture (Attleboro, MA), founded in 2012 by sisters Debra Britt, Felicia Walker, and Tamara Mattinson, began as a family collecting practice and grew into a museum housing more than 10,000 Black dolls. The collec...

In 1952, Glendale Townhomes became one of Minneapolis’s first public housing communities—home to Black Americans, East African and Hmong immigrants, refugees, students, and working-class families. Decades later, as city officials sought to privatize or demolish its 184 units, residents organized the Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition, transforming a threat of displacement into a moveme...

In 1931, nine Black teenagers—later known as the Scottsboro Boys—were falsely accused of raping two white women, igniting one of the most infamous legal injustices in U.S. history and a global fight for civil rights. Founded in 2010 by the late Sheila Washington, the Scottsboro Boys Museum preserves their story and her legacy, including her pivotal role in securing their posthumous exoneration thr...

How do faith, dignity, self-respect, and inter generational land stewardship inform both survival and freedom? In celebration of Black August and the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, this episode focuses on the Safe House Black History Museum in Greensboro, AL. In Greensboro, AL, stands a house that once shielded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from the deadly threats of the Ku Klux Klan on M...

How has the Penn Center functioned as a hub for Black freedom and cultural preservation for over 160 years? Founded in 1862 as one of the first schools for formerly enslaved people, the Penn Center has long been a cornerstone of Black self-determination on St. Helena Island. Today, it remains a vital force for cultural preservation and land retention in the Gullah Geechee corridor. In this episode...

What does it mean to sustain a living culture and a community still fighting for recognition, where even the burial grounds are contested, and challenging development means standing for both the dead and the living? Founder and Executive Director Glenda Simmons-Jenkins and Operations Officer Kathy Carswell join Black Preservation Stories to discuss Gullah/Geechee heritage, land loss, displacement,...

This episode centers on the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project, based in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 2011, the project honors the memory of two million Africans who perished during the transatlantic crossing and the ten million who survived to shape the Americas—through the placement of historical markers and public ceremonies of remembrance across the United States. Founder...

On this episode of Black Preservation Stories, we focus on Friends of the Tanner House in Philadelphia, who, since December 2021, have rallied to save the childhood home of artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, known for The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor. In 2023, they launched a community-driven visioning process for restoration, programming, and stewardship to transform the house into a vibrant cultu...

On this episode of Black Preservation Stories, we visit the Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History in Mound Bayou, Mississippi—known as the “Jewel of the Delta” and the oldest all-Black municipality in the U.S., founded in 1887 by formerly enslaved visionaries Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green. The museum's mission is to honor traditions of self-governance, mutual aid,...

This episode of Black Preservation Stories focuses on the developing Bellevue Passage Museum, in Bellevue, Maryland, one of the last historically black maritime communities on the Eastern shore, as developers proposed 14 multi-million dollar waterfront homes that threatened to erase Bellevue. The museum's founders race to protect its working-class and communal legacy. Dr. Dennis De Shields and his...