April 25, 2024

The Learning Lab series provides practical tips, advice, and guidance on specific historic preservation topics that are relevant to African American preservation projects. We hope these posts help community members and leaders better navigate the complexities of historic preservation work successfully.  

What We’re Reading: Historic Preservation Edition I

• Preserving African American Places: Growing Preservation’s Potential as a Path for Equity, report from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (at the National Trust for Historic Preservation)
  • Author: Brent Leggs, National Trust for Historic Preservation 
  • Recommendation: This report asks a crucial question: “how can preservation be a force for advancing equitable development and social justice in African American neighborhoods and other communities of color? This report seeks to unpack some of the multidimensional and intersectional issues stemming from place-based structural inequities that continue to impact communities today. Our goal is twofold: first, to understand the implications of different forms of place-based injustice and their impact on the preservation of African American cultural heritage; and second, to identify preservation-based strategies for equitable growth that respect the historical and present-day realities and conditions of African American neighborhoods.”
  • Topics: displacement, gentrification, neighborhoods, communities, erasure, equity, justice

• Black Landscapes Matter
  • Author: Walter Hood and Grace Mitchell Tada
  • Recommendation: This newly published collection highlights places across the US where we can see systemic racism in the built environment and the erasure of Black communities. “Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.”
  • Topics: cultural landscapes, architecture, built environment, art, memory 

• The Fight to Preserve African American History, article in The New Yorker
  • Author: Casey Cep 
  • Recommendation: An interesting read to learn an overview of the history of African American historic preservation and the struggles still embodied today. This article features the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund as a major player and features some stories of preservation projects as they fight to protect and honor their legacy. Click here for a free pdf. 
  • Topics: African American preservation, AACHAF

• The Evolving Role of Preservation on College Campuses, article from the National Trust for Historic Preservation
  • Recommendation: Colleges and universities contain some of our oldest buildings – a fact that many both within and outside of the campus place value in. But preservation has not always been a priority for campuses, and especially not conversations about what campuses should preserve and why. This is starting to shift however, and this article covers this growing shift in preservation thinking.
  • Topics: colleges, universities, campus buildings, preservation planning

• The Past and Future City: How Historic Preservation Is Reviving America’s Communities
  • Authors: Kevin C. Murphy and Stephanie Meeks
  • Recommendation: This book focuses on preservation of cities, and “the many ways that saving and restoring [the] historic fabric can help a city create thriving neighborhoods, good jobs, and a vibrant economy.” The history of urban development and recent urban resurgence is discussed and itt acknowledges both the positives and deep issues with this phenomenon (although it is not a book about the effects of urban renewal on Black communities, and could do a better job of addressing this reality.) The author “explains the critical importance of preservation for all our communities, the ways the historic preservation field has evolved to embrace the challenges of the twenty-first century, and the innovative work being done in the preservation space now.” 
  • Topics: cities, neighborhoods, urban renewal, urban development, physical preservation

Some recommendations not specific to historic preservation, but relevant to Black history work: 

• The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth – book that started as a podcast! (book here and podcast here)
  • Author: Jermaine Fowler 
  • Recommendation: “In this instant New York Times bestseller, Jermaine Fowler takes a sweeping survey of human history to show how Black humanity has been erased and how its recovery can save the humanity of us all.”
  • Topics: Black history, whitewashed history, erasure, truth-telling, memory 

• Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery
  • Author: Joe McGill, Herb Frazier  
  • Recommendation: South Carolina historic preservationist Joseph McGill, Jr. began the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010 in order to bring attention to the fact that formerly enslaved peoples’ dwellings still stand, and to foster honest conversations about history and race. “In this enlightening personal account, one man tells the story of his groundbreaking project to sleep overnight in former slave dwellings that still stand across the country—revealing the fascinating history behind these sites and shedding light on larger issues of race in America.”
  • Tags: slavery, extant structures, race, preservation, memory