We preserve Black places as part of our commitment to telling the full and diverse story of our shared history and built environment.
There is a dearth of officially recognized Black historic places. Although African Americans make up over 12% of the U.S. population, only 2% of the sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), the “official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation” administered by the National Park Service, were nominated for their connection to Black history.
This striking disparity springs from many factors, all boiling down to systemic bias. Prior to the enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966—the legislation that created the NRHP—many Black places had already been lost. Entire historic neighborhoods were intentionally destroyed by urban renewal programs or violent mobs; other sites deteriorated due to disinvestment caused by redlining.
Even after the NRHP was instituted, its criteria were initially biased against modest structures—leaving many wood-framed churches, dwellings, and other culturally important but unassuming buildings to languish without the protections conferred by listing in the Register. Today, new programs like the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (AACHAF) are working to get Black places listed and provide funding for preservation projects.
Quinn Evans has a long history of working to preserve Black places, whether or not they’re listed in the NRHP. Our historians specialize in discovering a site’s full and often complex history through research and community engagement, which our preservation architects translate into thoughtful design interventions. With curiosity and an inclusive approach, we aim to preserve these places in ways that honor their significance and ensure their stories continue to be told.
A lot of our work is to balance America’s collective memory.
BRENT LEGGS, NTHP AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL HERITAGE ACTION FUND
It Starts with Understanding
The first step in preserving any historic site is understanding its history and current conditions. For us, this process involves historians, architects, and landscape architects working collaboratively with community members and other stakeholders to gather information.
Through research and engagement, we often uncover hidden or overlooked Black stories, even in projects that were not initially identified as significant to African American heritage. For example, when we began planning the modernization and expansion of Stratford Junior High School, now Dorothy Hamm Middle School, its importance as the first public school in Virginia to desegregate after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision was not widely understood. Our outreach uncovered this forgotten link, resulting in a design that celebrates the school’s history—and its renaming after civil rights activist Dorothy Hamm.
Our documentation work may include Determination of Eligibility (DOE) studies or formal nominations for listing in state historic registers or the NRHP. These listings not only raise public awareness of a site’s importance; they also make sites eligible for state and/or federal historic preservation grant and tax credit programs. As part of our 20th Century African American Civil Rights Sites project in Detroit, we successfully nominated five sites to the NRHP, allowing their operators and associated community groups to access new funding opportunities.
Building on History
Once we understand a site’s historical and social context, we can move forward with preserving it through one or more approaches tailored to its conditions, the community’s needs, and its historic significance.
RENOVATION AND/OR EXPANSION
Renovations make improvements to a historic place, allowing it to continue to serve its original function for new generations of users. We are well versed in applying the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties (SOI Standards) when designing renovations—a prerequisite for a project to receive historic tax credits, and also a good preservation practice. Guided by the Standards, we use a light touch to refresh the highest-character spaces—those that retain the most historic fabric and give the place its distinctive feel. Dramatic interventions are reserved for spaces that have already been altered over time or for compatible additions to the historic structure.
An example of this approach is our renovation and expansion of the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum, the state of Maryland’s official museum of African American Heritage. In 1984, the historic Mount Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church was converted into the museum. Two decades later, we undertook its renovation and expansion. We preserved the historic sanctuary for use as a community gathering space, reworked lower-level administrative spaces, and created an addition to house permanent exhibits. Per the SOI Standards, the addition harmonizes with the original building but is also distinctly modern.
ADAPTIVE REUSE
Adaptive reuse involves not just renovating a structure but repurposing it for an entirely new use. We bring deep experience in the adaptive reuse of historic places; this work is part of our commitment to revitalizing communities by renewing our existing building stock. Like renovations, adaptive reuse projects must meet the SOI Standards to benefit from historic tax credits and some other funding mechanisms.
Many adaptive reuse projects for Black historic places involve conversion to a museum, like the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum, the Jackson Home, or the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. However, the possibilities for adaptive reuse are limited only by the activities a structure can support. We recently repurposed a vacant factory building with a civil rights and labor movement history into a commercial and community gathering space called the Packing House, and we’re currently working to convert the former Blue Bird Inn into the home of the nonprofit Detroit Sound Conservancy.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TREATMENT AND INTERPRETATION
Never overlook the power of a good report! Along with historic documentation, our historians and preservation architects can provide recommendations for the ongoing treatment and interpretation of historic places. These recommendations are often developed as part of a prescriptive planning document such as a Historic Structure Report (HSR) or Cultural Landscape Report (CLR), the parameters of which are defined by the National Park Service.
We’ve developed such reports for several Black history sites, including an HSR for the Clifton House, a CLR for the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, and updates to the HSR and CLR for the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. We have also developed a range of less intensive reports tailored to the client’s needs, such as a building condition assessment report for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs headquarters; a historic context study for Hamtramck Stadium, home of the segregation-era Detroit Stars and Detroit Wolves baseball teams; and an interpretive master plan for the Dr. Ossian Sweet Educational Plaza commemorating the events that culminated in the precedent-setting Sweet Trials.
From Past to Future
Through our efforts to preserve Black historic places, we are working to create a fuller and more inclusive understanding of American history. Each of these sites serves as a tangible reminder of the resilience, creativity, and contributions of African Americans to our shared heritage. By recognizing and protecting these places, we add to the American story so future generations know where they—and we—came from.
We’ve got to make sure our kids know how they got here, and what those who came before us did to try and make a better life.
JOAN MAYNARD, ARTIST AND PRESERVATION ACTIVIST
