Grants Awarded

The following projects are funded through a major grant to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

2024 Grants
2023 Grants

2024 Grants

Azurest South

Virginia State University Alumni Association | St. Petersburg, Virginia
Azurest South, completed in 1934, is the home and studio of pioneering African American architect Amaza Lee Meredith. Located on the Virginia State University (VSU) campus, where she established the Fine Arts program and lived with her partner Dr. Edna Meade Colson, the house stands as a symbol of her innovative approach to design. The streamlined, International Style building features a concrete façade punctuated by glass bricks and a flat roof that functions as a terrace, enabling physical and visual connections to the outdoors. As part of her commitment to advancing African American culture and heritage, Meredith bequeathed original drawings and plans for the house to VSU and bestowed her share of the house upon the Alumni Association, which purchased the second half of the estate after Dr. Colson’s death in 1985 for use as an alumni gathering space. Funding will support the implementation of a conservation management plan for the building, which is currently listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

Ira Aldridge Theater
Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University | Washington, DC
Ira Aldridge Theater, built in 1961 as part of Howard University’s campus, was designed by esteemed Black architects Hilyard Robinson and Paul R. Williams. Robinson taught at Howard from the early 1920s to the 1960s, and he and Williams brought a modernist sensibility to the theater with its square limestone and turquoise ceramic panels and graphic neon signage. Named after a famed 19th-century African American Shakespearean actor, the building is one of the first university-operated theaters on a historically Black college or university campus and serves as a cultural repository for architecture, theater, dance, and the visual arts as part of the university’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. Funds will support the development of a historic structures report and interpretation plan, ensuring the future of the building as the historic home of Howard’s performance arts programs.

Masjid Muhammad, Nations Mosque
Masjid Muhammad, Inc.| Washington, DC
Since its inception in 1937, Masjid Muhammad has played an instrumental role as the Nation’s Mosque by cultivating a vibrant Islamic community for one of the oldest Black Muslim congregations in the United States. The current building, designed by African American architect David R. Byrd, was constructed in 1960 as the first mosque in Washington D.C. to be built from the ground up by its citizens, and the first in America by descendants of enslaved African Americans and African Muslims. Byrd’s designs epitomized his commitment to civil rights, community empowerment, and social justice, values he shared with the mosque’s members and stakeholders, including founder Elijah Muhammad and prominent figures Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. A grand vaulted ceiling inside the prayer hall evokes the unique character of the era in which the mosque was built. The juxtaposition of raw, industrial materials with intricately detailed interior surfaces of the mihrab and other Islamic motifs creates a unique blend of modernist and traditional architectural styles. Masjid Muhammad will use the Getty grant to complete engineering and environmental studies as part of a plan to adopt green building design and earn LEED certification with the goal of becoming the capitol’s first green masjid.

Robert T. Coles House
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House | Buffalo, NY
Robert T. Coles, the first African American Chancellor of the American Institute of Architects and a founding member of the National Organization of Minority Architects, designed and built his house and studio in upstate New York in 1961. Coles viewed architecture as a form of advocacy and activism and devised the site’s layout in response to the social and physical impacts of changing urban infrastructure in his hometown of Buffalo. The two-story building is composed of prefabricated units arranged into an L shape to denote the studio and living spaces. Coles oriented the living spaces towards a rear garden and courtyard in an act of resistance to the impending development of a highway that cut through Humboldt Park, a tree-lined street in a predominantly Black neighborhood that was part of a larger interconnected park system. Funding will be applied towards a historic structures report, conservation plan, and reuse and feasibility study to preserve the building. This work will support Coles’ legacy and commitment to advancing equity and justice through design in Buffalo and beyond.

JFK Recreation Center
Preservation Buffalo Niagara | Buffalo, NY
The JFK Recreation Center is one of Buffalo’s most notable buildings, exhibiting a futuristic mid-century modern vernacular with whimsical rooflines, deep overhangs, clerestory windows, and restrained ornamentation. Designed by Robert T. Coles as his thesis project at MIT, the city-owned civic complex was completed in 1963 as the centerpiece of the Ellicott District Redevelopment Project, the first federal urban renewal project in New York. Opened as the Ellicott District Recreation Center, the two-story complex was renamed to honor John F. Kennedy in 1965. The facility, which continues to operate as a community center for Buffalo’s East Side, provides a variety of multigenerational services in its activity and office wing and double-height, barrel vaulted gymnasium. A comprehensive preservation plan will guide future generations of service to the surrounding communities and honor Coles’ commitment to social justice and making the architecture profession more inclusive.

Dansby, Brawley, and Wheeler Halls
Morehouse College | Atlanta, GA
Leon Allain, a prominent African American architect in the Atlanta area, designed Claude B. Dansby, Benjamin G. Brawley, and John H. Wheeler halls at Morehouse College through the early 1970s as part of a coordinated campus expansion. The three-story academic buildings were built in the modernist International Style using glass curtain walls, flat roofs, cast-in-place concrete structural systems, and brick veneers that stood in stark contrast to the Georgian Revival, Victorian, and Romanesque-inspired buildings on the historic campus quad. Allain designed seven buildings for the College and the Morehouse School of Medicine, all of which are indicative of the school’s commitment to cultivating strong community leaders. In this spirit (nicknamed the “Morehouse Mystique”), the three halls were named in honor of alumni who served as educational mentors and stewarded the College through segregation into the civil rights movement. As part of the College’s Future Strategic Plan, Getty funding will support building assessments and a historic structures report for the three halls.

Universal Life Insurance Company Building
South Memphis Renewal Community Development Corporation | Memphis, TN
Designed and constructed in 1949 by McKissack and McKissack, the oldest African American architecture firm in the country, the Universal Life Insurance Company (ULICO) Building represents a 101-year legacy of economic empowerment in African American communities. As ULICO’s home office, the building was the nexus of the company’s programming and efforts to provide financial security to thousands of African Americans who were denied access to capital in the segregated South and beyond. The building’s unique blend of modernist design principles and Egyptian Revival details had a strong impact on African American architects both regionally and nationally, due in part to its symbolism and architectural character. A grant will support a cultural interpretation plan and repairs to certain sections of the building alongside community programming intended to educate the public on entrepreneurship, history, and the power of architecture to shape communities.

Kenneth G. Neigh Dormitory Complex
Dream Center Golden Triangle | West Point, MS
The Kenneth G. Neigh Dormitory Complex, designed by J. Max Bond Jr. of the Black-owned firm Bond, Johnson & Ryder, was built in 1970 to house students at the historically Black Mary Holmes Community College. Bond’s modular design embodied aspirations of the civil rights movement such as freedom and self-determination, giving inhabitants the ability to travel fluidly between flexible public common areas and private rooms. His design also changed the configuration of the complex’s lounge spaces with colorful, movable furniture. Together with its brutalist concrete foundations and brick exterior, punctuated by multicolor steel doors, Bond’s overall vision helped establish him as the leading architect of his generation. Funding will support an adaptive reuse feasibility study for the buildings, which have reached an advanced state of deterioration following the College’s closure in 2005. The project seeks to transform the dormitories into transitional housing while preserving the building’s legacy and architectural character.

2023 Grants

Charles McAfee Swimming Pool and Pool House

City of Wichita | Wichita, Kansas
Constructed in 1969, the Charles McAfee Pool, with its distinctive modular shade structures, was designed by Black architect Charles McAfee, one of the founding members of the National Organization of Minority Architects. The pool was one of the first municipal pools in Kansas to offer Black swimmers—formerly denied entrance to most public pools due to segregation—access to competition-length swimming lanes. The architect erected double sand-blasted concrete shade structures for pool-goers to find respite from the sun during the day and concrete light towers for night swimming. The pool house, composed of modular concrete and brick, provides a minimalistic environment to shower and change. Funding will go towards developing a preservation plan to guide the site’s future maintenance and long-term care.

Watts Happening Cultural Center

City of Los Angeles | Los Angeles, California
A design collaboration between African American architects Robert Kennard and Arthur Silvers in 1970, the Watts Happening Cultural Center is a centerpiece of Black arts and culture in the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles. The restrained, rectangular building possesses unadorned white walls and a pilotis-based ground floor, with an interior courtyard that responds to historical Los Angeles’s traditions, climate, and general mid-century optimism. The courtyard serves as the outdoor dining and community space for the Watts Coffee House. The City of Los Angeles designated the site a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2021. Funding will enable the development of a Historic Structure Report and preservation plan to guide future rehabilitation and programming for this cultural anchor, home of the historic Mafundi Institute—a Black cultural academy created in 1967—and other community organizations.

Carson City Hall Building

City of Carson | Carson, California
The Spanish Rancho- and Japanese-influenced Carson City Hall was co-designed by Black architect Robert Kennard, whose firm is the oldest Black American architectural firm in Los Angeles. Kennard was part of the second generation of African American architects in the city, being inspired by predecessors Paul R. Williams and A. Quincy Jones. Born in Los Angeles, he founded his firm there in 1957 and went on to design more than 700 projects across Southern California. Featuring organic, nautical-inspired forms, Carson City Hall is designed with three wings that create a “Y” shape, causing the building’s sides to simulate ship windows with outriggers and the offices perched above to appear like a ship’s bridge. The interior main staircase ascends toward a nautilus-shaped atrium, and, like a yacht, nearly all the interior walls are polished teak. A Historic Structure Report will provide information to address the preservation needs of the building and landscape as well as enhance public educational programming to raise awareness about the site’s importance.

First Baptist Church-West

First Baptist Church-West Community Services Association | Charlotte, North Carolina
Recognized as the oldest Black Baptist church community in Charlotte, North Carolina, the current First Baptist Church-West building was designed in 1977 by Harvey Gantt, the first Black Mayor of Charlotte and the first African American student admitted to Clemson University. Gantt’s sleek, yet warmly colored red brick church is covered with steep angles and jutting geometric shapes that include right angles, rectangles, squares, and cubes. The main sanctuary features a vaulted ceiling marked by a bell tower on top, with interior walls graced by stained glass windows depicting brightly colored, modern interpretations of Christianity's main tenets. Though now retired, the 80-year-old architect is still well known and has agreed to share his memories of designing the church to help with the project. Funds will support a comprehensive plan that will allow the history of the sanctuary to be preserved with necessary repairs to the roof and baptismal area.

Fourth Baptist Church’s Educational Wing

Fourth Baptist Church | Richmond, Virginia
Established in 1859 by 23 enslaved Africans, Fourth Baptist Church is one of the oldest Black congregations in Virginia. The church’s Modernist educational building, with its minimal profile and expansive glass windows, was designed in 1962 by Ethel Bailey Furman, the earliest-known Black woman architect in Virginia. A self-taught professional, Furman designed an estimated 200 residences and churches in Virginia, plus two churches in Liberia. In 2000, her educational building was added to the National Register of Historic Places and its architectural blueprints are now cataloged within the Library of Virginia. A Historic Structure Report with limited capital repairs will give the congregation the information they need to preserve Furman’s educational wing and allow future generations to learn about her trailblazing legacy.

Morgan State University’s Jenkins Hall

Morgan State University | Baltimore, Maryland
Jenkins Hall at Morgan State University was designed by Louis Edwin Fry, the first African American to receive a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University. Fry was a founding member of the National Organization of Minority Architects and mentor to hundreds of young African American professionals training in the discipline. The façade of his cement-clad, Brutalist building on Morgan State’s campus consists of linear, repetitive two-by-four windows that appear as indented voids in the solidity of the walls. In a design aspect typical of Brutalism, which aims to bring visibility to untraditional areas, the building’s first floor forms a buttress outwards so that the floors above provide an overhang to prevent sun penetration into the lower-level classrooms. Morgan State University will complete a conservation management plan and reuse study to determine the optimal future use for the building while preserving its monumental history.

Second Baptist Church of Detroit’s Education Building

Second Baptist Church of Detroit | Detroit, Michigan
Second Baptist Church of Detroit is the oldest Black congregation in Michigan. Established in 1836, the church has played a significant role in the social and political lives of generations of Black Detroit residents. Renowned Black architect Nathan Johnson, known for his work within Detroit’s faith community, designed the site’s Brutalist education building in 1968, allowing the congregation to further its community impact. Composed of brick and concrete, the structure eschews ornament while blending harmoniously with the original church building next door. A comprehensive building assessment with limited capital repairs will equip the congregation with the necessary framework to preserve the educational building for generations to come.

Zion Baptist Church

Zion Baptist Church | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Architect Walter Livingston, Jr. designed Zion Baptist Church—a congregation founded in 1882—in the early 1970s. Livingston was a North Philadelphia native with degrees in architecture and urban design from the University of Pennsylvania, and he was the first Black architect inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects for his outstanding contribution to the field of architecture. For the church’s design, Livingston explored the relationship between volume and mass, constructing the sanctuary with dramatic clerestory walls composed of colorful, staggered-glass panels that soar upwards, forming a sort of abstracted steeple that references and creates symmetry with the corner tower of the Educational Annex across the street. The original exterior, primarily composed of brick and glass, is still intact and representative of Modern-style buildings constructed in and around Philadelphia during the period. A comprehensive building assessment and preservation plan will provide a roadmap for the protection and maintenance of this significant historic church and community treasure.