This fund helps tell the full story of American history
I have a professional update I'm so excited to share with you all!
Hello my friends! Before I dive into the subject of today’s newsletter, I want to remind you to please fill out the survey I shared a couple weeks ago. It’s integral to helping me create the travel content that I know you all want to see, and I’m here to serve! I promise it won’t take more than five minutes of your time.
Now onto some news. I’m proud to share that I am a 2024 African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Fellow! The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is a program within the National Trust for Historic Preservation dedicated to preserving sites of African American achievement, activism and resilience. I am working with the fund as an editorial fellow to share the often untold and unsung stories of the people and places that expand the story of America. After all, Black history is American history.
The journey to this fellowship began during the winter of 2020 when I started working with Veranda magazine, a lifestyle and interiors publication that also covers preservation. At the time, the magazine had just entered a partnership with the Action Fund to shift their focus of preservation topics from, for example, impeccably preserved castles in Europe to Black history and culture sites in the United States that were in the midst of their preservation efforts. I’m proud to say that the stories we produced together have helped these churches, gravesites, social clubs and nonprofits get the recognition they deserved, and in some cases, helped them meet their fundraising goals. See more of my work with Veranda here.
In my fellowship, I’ll be telling deeper stories about the historic places that have received grants from the fund, as well as the funds larger grant programs like the Preserving Black Churches program and the HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative. Right now though, I want to share with you all three Action Fund site/grantees I’m excited to dig into this year.
YMI Cultural Center - Asheville, North Carolina
I love Asheville and have written about it a bajillion times, but it wasn’t until my last trip there for The New York Times that I felt like I got a glimpse into the soul of the vibrant mountain town. Although today Asheville is a bright blue spot in a fairly red state with fantastic restaurants, artist communities and beautiful architecture, it was in no way immune to the racist policies of America. On my last visit, I got to dig into the until recently hidden history of Asheville’s Black community and the overall theme of Affrilachia - communities of African descent throughout the Appalachian region of America that is widely perceived as majorly white. The hub of Asheville’s former Black district called “The Block” (which was mostly destroyed by racist urban planning policies) was the YMI Cultural Center, one of the oldest Black cultural centers in the United States, founded in 1893. The space was closed for restoration when I visited in the fall of 2022, but I was so excited to see that last year it received a grant from the Action Fund to continue the buildings interior updates. I’ll be first in line when it reopens.
The Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Park Expansion - Topeka, Kansas and beyond
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of education, which desegregated American schools. For me, it’s so insane to think about the fact that only one generation ahead of me attended segregated schools, yet many try to make it seem like national segregation was so long ago. It wasn’t. My parents attended segregated schools and probably still felt some nervousness about sending me to school in the 1990s even though schools had been integrated for decades. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking this decision was like flipping a light switch and all of a sudden all children went to school together with no problems. In fact, I was shocked to learn that the last school to legally desegregate, Cleveland High School in Cleveland, Mississippi, didn’t do so until 2016. 2016! What also is left out of the Brown vs. Board narrative is that a collection of schools across the east coast were a part of the Supreme Court case. In 2022, President Biden signed a law to expand the national historic site beyond Topeka to include additional landmarks in Delaware, DC, Virginia and South Carolina.
Hotel Casa Blanca - Idlewild, Michigan
I’ve been obsessed with the once thriving, all Black lakeside resort community of Idlewild, Michigan for a very long time. Referred to as “Black Eden,” Idlewild was one of the few places where Black families could safely vacation from 1912 until the mid 1960s, during the height of segregation. There were shops, nightclubs, restaurants, lakeside cottages and the crown jewel, Hotel Casa Blanca, which was a hub for political figures, artists, writers and musicians including Duke Ellington and Aretha Franklin. For years I’ve checked in on Idlewild, randomly googling to see if the town, which fell into disrepair after being abandoned after integration, had any sort of resurgence. Thankfully, in 2003, the Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center opened and state funding has been designated for revitalization. Most importantly, three Black women educators, Dr. Ida Short, Ms. Betti Wiggins and Dr. Charlene Austin, are spearheading the restoration of Hotel Casa Blanca, with the assistance of a grant from the Action Fund. I cannot WAIT to plan my trip to Michigan to see it with my own eyes!
As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope the Action Fund’s list of grantees inspires you to plan your summer vacations around this important sites. I know that’s what I’ll be doing and of course, I’ll report back. 😉 Please share this newsletter with all your friends and family as they plan their upcoming travels.