Preserving significant Black landmarks and places is an act of social justice

The preservation of Black historical landmarks is the mission of a national fund and a heritage trail project that has existed in Gainesville for more than a dozen years.

The two were somewhat intertwined last month during a speaker series sponsored by the University of Florida's Center for The Humanities and The Public Sphere (CHPS) that was billed as "Preserving Galazy of Black Landmarks is an Act of Social Justice." The guest speaker was Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and senior vice president of the National Trust.

Fund is a social movement for justice, equity and reconciliation

Envisioned as a social movement for justice, equity and reconciliation, the Action Fund is promoting the role of cultural preservation in telling the nation’s full history, while also empowering activists, entrepreneurs, artists and civic leaders to advocate on behalf of Black historic places, according to the funds website at https://bit.ly/3SGfybf.

Leggs spoke during UF's Rethinking the Public Sphere Speaker Series 2022-2023 that was held in two sessions on Sept. 23 in Gainesville at Smathers Library on the UF campus and at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center in southeast Gainesville.

The session at the Cotton Club Museum was billed as “Preserving African American Communities and Landmarks: A Conversation with Brent Leggs and Community Leaders of African American Neighborhoods and Sites.” It was moderated by Vivian Filer, chair of the museum's board of directors.

The event included a brief talk by Leggs about the activities and ethos of the African American Heritage Action Fund and a round-table conversation between Leggs and 10 leaders of historic Black neighborhoods and sites in Gainesville and Alachua County, Barbara Mennel, Rothman Chair and director of the CHPS, wrote in an email.

“Brent Leggs was inspired and energized by his visit,” Mennel said. “He saw a lot of opportunity and envisions a return visit to Gainesville.”

Leggs visited several historic Black neighborhoods and sites locally, one of which was Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church at 429 NW Fourth St., which has been the home of Prayers by Faith Family Ministries since 2012. Thanks to the efforts of Pastor Gerard Duncan, founder and pastor of Prayers by Faith, the site was placed last year on the National Register of Historic Places for the property’s significance as an architectural and cultural resource. The site in 2013 was designated as a state of Florida Heritage Landmark.

Duncan said he was encouraged by Leggs' visit to Gainesville because Leggs is dedicated to keeping the legacies of historic Black landmarks alive. He said Leggs believes Black historic landmarks are "sacred" and need to be maintained, restored and preserved.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation in Nov. 2017 launched its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which is a preservation campaign to preserve and protect places that have been overlooked in American history and represent centuries of Black activism, achievement and resilience. The Action Fund since its inception has raised $80 million and supported more than 200 preservation projects nationally, according to the fund's website.

For more than 70 years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has led the movement  to save American historic places, including Confederate landmarks and sites, as well as some that were part of the cattle slavery era in America, Leggs said.

In recent years there has been more of a push to recognize the significance of Black historic landmarks and sites, thus the creation of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, Leggs said.

Grants in Florida have been awarded to the Union Academy neighborhood in Tarpon Springs to use for a cultural resources survey and the Okahumpka Rosenwald School in Okahumpka to stabilize the foundation and restore the roof and windows of the school.

Fund fits with vision of Gainesville CRA's Fifth Avenue/Pleasant Street Heritage Trail project

The mission of the fund fits perfectly with the Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area's (formerly Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency) Fifth Avenue/Pleasant Street Heritage Trail project that has been on and off for more than a dozen years. The project picked up steam in 2017 when it received a new consultant, and continued moving forward until it was placed on pause again because of the CIVID-19 pandemic, said Tricia Lopez, a CRA project manager.

The Fifth Avenue/Pleasant Street Historic District once served as the religious, educational, business and social center for the Black community in Gainesville dating back to the end of slavery.

Lopez said The Fifth Avenue/Pleasant Street Heritage Trail will feature a walking tour that will show and tell the history of the community, and will feature 34 sites with sign boards that will present the theme and history of each site. The sites were identified and developed through community feedback received at community meetings, Lopez said.

The next step in the process to make the trail a reality will be to go back to the community and get feedback about how the sign boards should be presented, Lopez said.

“The sites have been pretty much identified,” Lopez said, adding the sites are not city-owned and the majority of the 34 sites are privately owned.

The two-mile trail will allow users to enter at any point, and it will utilize existing sidewalks identified by the hierarchy of trail signs along the route to reveal the trail's themes and stories. Other sites of significance may be part of future phases, Lopez said.

The trail will begin at the A. Quinn Jones Museum and Cultural Center, 1013 NW Seventh Ave. The six themes of the trail will be civil rights, education, family, spiritual life, business and arts and music.

Some of the other sites on the trail will include land that once housed Rock Front Grocery Story and Mom's Kitchen, the old Lincoln Theatre, Duncan Brothers Funeral Home, Marie's Boarding House, Sarah's Restaurant, Friendship Baptist Church, Rose Theatre and many others.

Those involved with local Black historic landmarks who attended the event featuring Leggs were encouraged to work together to obtain resources that will help them collectively, Duncan said.

"He (Leggs) told us we need to collaborate and that we should all be working together to highlight our projects collectively," Duncan said. "We need to highlight the strengths of each building and site and work together to show how they were built and maintained with the brilliance of the Black people who built and used them. These are truly sacred places and them and the stories that go along with them must be preserved and remembered."

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Preserving Black Landmarks, Act of Social Justice, message to action.