The city of Greensboro has been awarded a $75,000 grant for a program aimed at documenting African American civil rights and architectural history.
This is the second African American Civil Rights Program Grant Greensboro has received from the National Park Service. The funding allows for the continuation of oral history research and documentation of the African American architects who designed structures that became the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement. The project includes surveys that help determine if a property or neighborhood is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
Eric Woodard is a board member with Preservation Greensboro. He says that the Civil Rights Grants ensure that those names and places are not lost to history.
"What this grant is helping to do is to help preserve in the public record the amazing accomplishments of these folks who, in spite of what they faced being who they were in the world, and having been born at the time that they were, they were able to make these amazing accomplishments and design this amazing architecture," says Woodard.
Greensboro received the first grant in 2021, which resulted in the National Register nomination for the South Benbow Road Historic District, known for its modernist architecture.
Oral histories are being archived at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro digital collections website.