The DC Preservation League (DCPL) is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a grant from the National Park Service’s (NPS) African American Civil Rights Grants Program* and a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Dorthea DeSchweinitz Preservation Fund for DC.** The grants will underwrite the production of a National Register Multiple Property Document (MPD)—an official document that provides context for and identifies resources related to a specific theme—focused on the African American Civil Rights Movement of the 20th Century in Washington, DC. This project will catalyze local nominations to both the DC Inventory of Historic Sites and the National Register of Historic Places.
To assist in the completion of this document, DCPL has contracted with Prologue DC—a Washington-based, woman-owned firm specializing in DC neighborhood history, which will work in consultation with preservation architect Nakita Reed, AIA; scholar Chris Myers Asch of Colby College and co-author of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital (2017); and architectural historian Amber Wiley, Ph.D, of Rutgers University—to document historic resources, identify themes, and develop a historic context narrative outlining criteria for their inclusion. As specified by NPS, Prologue will use the 2008 NPS report Civil Rights in America, A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites as a reference for identifying properties to be included.
A first draft of the site list will be completed and shared with the public this fall and an open-invitation community meeting will follow on Tuesday, November 5th at 6:30 pm at the Thurgood Marshall Center, 1816 12th Street, NW. Please save the date! Click here to view the working list of sites that will be discussed at the November 5th presentation.
Once the MPD is finalized, DCPL will submit it to the DC Historic Preservation Office for adoption by the DC Historic Preservation Review Board. It will then be forwarded to the National Register of Historic Places.
To receive email updates on the project and a special invitation to the Community Forum, please register here.
*Partially funded by the African American Civil Rights program of the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Interior.
**This project has been funded in part by a grant from the Dorothea DeSchweinitz Fund for DC of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Photos:
1963 March on Washington, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection
12th Street YMCA, 1816 12th Street, NW, Thurgood Marshall Center
