National Park Service awards over $15 million to help preserve African American Civil Rights history

The National Park Service today announced $15,035,000 million to 53 projects in 20 states that will preserve sites and history related to the African American struggle for equality.  

 

“Through these grants to our public and private partners, these projects will help to preserve an often-untold story of our nation’s diverse history,” said NPS Deputy Director Shawn Benge. “The African American Civil Rights grants program supports our state, local, and nonprofit partners in physical preservation of historic sites and history projects related to the African American struggle for equality.”

 

This years’ grants include preserving Harriet Beecher Stowe’s house in Ohio, All Star Bowling Lanes in South Carolina, a Civil Rights interpretive trail in Louisiana, and research into the case of Gilbert v. Board.

Full Annoucement

Friends of Dreamland awarded preservation grant from the National Parks Service.

The National Parks Service (NPS) has awarded $14 million in African American Civil Right Historic Preservation Funds granted to worthy causes all over the United States. In December, Friends of Dreamland (FOD) applied for these funds and earlier this month, we were awarded $499,723.00 to continue the access project to the Dreamland Ballroom started in 2017. This time, FOD will be able to complete the installation of the elevator inside the recently construction addition, install HVAC system, repair and replace windows, and add an ADA compliant bathroom to the third floor ballroom. This will complete the Dreamland Ballroom Public Access Project. Making the 101 year old ballroom accessible to everyone and usable year round.

Read the full press release from the NPS here, contain all the locations awarded funding this year: https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/04-06-2020-nps-announces-african-american-civil-rights-grants.htm

Read the press release by one of FOD’s biggest supporters, Congressmen French Hill: https://hill.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=6927

Friends of Dreamland director, Matthew McCoy, interviewed on THV11’s “R&B Week”

Director of the Friends of Dreamland and curator for the Dreamland Ballroom, Matthew McCoy spoke to the host of THV11s The Vine, Ashley King, in January 2020. McCoy speaks on the musical legacy of the Dreamland Ballroom and, by extension, the West Ninth Street, historically black, business district in downtown Little Rock, AR.

View the segment with Matthew, as well as links to other interviews in THV11’s R&B Week here: https://www.thv11.com/article/entertainment/music/the-dreamland-ballroom-black-history/91-0fd47e55-cfa0-44d7-9b4f-7b47af81e13e

Two Little Rock sites get U.S. grants for civil rights; $1M set for ballroom, school

Photo by Thomas Metthe/ArkansasOnline

Photo by Thomas Metthe/ArkansasOnline

ArkansasOnline

by Chelsea Boozer

A historic ballroom where the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Ray Charles and other prominent black entertainers sang and performed for hundreds of Little Rock residents decades ago is a step closer to returning to an entertainment venue accessible to the public.

The Dreamland Ballroom in Taborian Hall at 800 W. Ninth St. is the recipient of an almost $500,000 federal grant that will allow its nonprofit board to install an elevator for the building and put centralized heating and air in the third-floor ballroom.

The project was one of two in Arkansas selected to receive an African American Civil Rights Grant from the U.S. Department of Interior and the National Park Service last week.

Out of $12.6 million doled out by the federal grant program this cycle, just under $1 million will go to Little Rock. The other nearly $500,000 grant was awarded to the Little Rock School District for its continued efforts at restoring the historic Central High School. The money will be used to replace 26 windows on the school’s front facade.

Nationally, grants will fund 51 projects in 24 states ranging from preserving a baseball stadium in New Jersey formerly used by the Negro National League to planning exhibits, trails and statewide surveys in other states.

In Little Rock, the Friends of Dreamland board has been working for almost a decade to raise funds to build an elevator at Taborian Hall so the third-floor ballroom is handicapped accessible. The building is located in what used to be a bustling black business corridor.

Its current owner, Kerry McCoy, bought the property in 1990, fixed a hole in the roof and renovated the first and second floors over the years for her business, Arkansas Flag and Banner. She wants to eventually open up the historic ballroom to the public and create a museum, but it currently is only booked as a private venue.

Lack of central heating and air prevents summer or winter events, and the lack of an elevator makes it inaccessible to the public at large. Because the ballroom takes up the entire third floor, Friends of Dreamland must build an addition to the structure for an elevator so the project doesn’t mess with the integrity of the ballroom.

Executive Director Matthew McCoy said it will still be a few years before the project is complete, and the board is now working to determine what public access would look like.

“Our goal for so long has been getting this elevator; now what are our new goals now that we can actually use the ballroom?” McCoy asked rhetorically. “Historical outreach is big, because this whole area we are in down here on Ninth Street has a lot of historical significance, particularly with the black community in Little Rock, and there’s very little known about it.

“Right now it’s all warehouses and empty grass lots, so you would never know there was a thriving business and entertainment district down here,” he said.

In its heyday, Taborian Hall was the Arkansas stop on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” — a series of venues across the nation that were safe for black artists to play. The Little Rock stop was between the Memphis and New Orleans stops, so Dreamland served as a venue for all the greats — Fitzgerald, Armstrong, King, Charles, Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, Etta James and more.

Some work has been done to the ballroom. In 2010, the floor was reconstructed with a plywood subfloor. McCoy has said she wants to make sure not to restore the venue too much. The paint on the walls is peeling, but many longtime residents want that to stay, because it’s the same paint that covered the walls when they frequented the venue in their youth.

The Central High School project that received funding will be implemented much sooner.

It is expected to take 120 to 150 days to replace 26 windows on the front column facade of the historic high school. District officials hope to complete the work over the summer when students aren’t in school.

The last time the school’s windows were replaced was in 1982. Before then, they hadn’t been touched since the building was constructed in 1927.

“We have to be very careful that we maintain the integrity and historic aspects of the building and follow all guidelines for replacing. [The current windows] have failed due to age and just their condition. They are just worn out, faded and worn,” district grants director Linda Young said.

Replacing the windows is part of a larger, long-range plan of work for Central. The district is tackling it in phases when funding or grant opportunities become available, Young said.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a news release that the federal government sets aside money for the grants to help places “tell an essential piece of that story through the African American struggle for civil rights and equality.”

National Park Service Deputy Director Dan Smith said the grants are a way to “tell a more complete narrative of the African American experience in the pursuit of civil rights.”

Alabama received the most grants in the 2017 funding cycle, with nine projects awarded funding.

Nearby, Memphis received $50,000 for its Memphis Heritage Trail and $500,000 for its Clayborn Temple Interior Sanctuary restoration project, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation received $20,000 for the temple and a 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike project.

Metro on 03/19/2018

Print Headline: Two LR sites get U.S. grants for civil rights; $1M set for ballroom, school

Original article 

Dream comes true: Dreamland Ballroom gets big restoration grant

Arkansas Times

Posted By Leslie Newell Peacock on Thu, Mar 15, 2018

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The U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service will award a $499,668 improvement grant to Dreamland Ballroom in the historic Taborian Hall building at Ninth and State streets, now the home of Little Rock Flag and Banner.

The ballroom, a booming place in the African-American business district back in the day, hosted such famed performers as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Earl “Fatha” Hines, B.B. King and Ray Charles. It was so dilapidated when Kerry McCoy bought the building in 1991 that it was on the verge of collapse. McCoy made it her mission to preserve the ballroom, which has its original paint and plaster and balconies on three sides, but she could not afford to cover the “astronomical” amount she would have had to borrow as a private person.

McCoy incorporated the Friends of Dreamland nonprofit in 2009 to apply for grant aid and has held a fundraiser, Dancing into Dreamland, every year since. The community support for the ballroom no doubt played a role in the awarding of the grant, which was also supported by Republican 2nd District Rep. French Hill.

The grant will allow the nonprofit to install heat and air for the first time, repair windows and expel the bats. The ballroom will get an elevator so that it is ADA accessible. The event space has been used for weddings despite its lack of air conditioning.

The grant is part of the NPS’ African American Civil Rights grants, which totaled $12 million for 41 projects in 24 states. The Little Rock School District was awarded $499,218 for a project titled “Preserving the History of Central High.”

Original article

Interior and National Park Service Announces $12.6 Million in Grants to Preserve African American Civil Rights History

News Release Date: March 12, 2018

Contact: Department of the Interior Press Office

Contact: NPS Office of Communications

(Press release originally distribted by the Department of the Interior Press Office)

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service today announced $12.6 million in grants for 51 projects in 24 states that preserve sites and highlight stories related to the African American struggle for equality in the 20th century.

“An integral part of the Interior and National Park Service mission is to help preserve and tell America’s story,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. “These grants will benefit places across the nation that help tell an essential piece of that story through the African American struggle for civil rights and equality.”

“Through the work and engagement of public and private partners, these grants will preserve a defining part of our nation’s diverse history,” National Park Service Deputy Director Dan Smith said. “By working with local communities to preserve these historic places and stories, we will help tell a more complete narrative of the African American experience in the pursuit of civil rights.”

Projects receiving grants this year include those that will preserve resources like a baseball stadium used by the Negro National League in Paterson, New Jersey; the home of civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell in Washington, D.C.; and the last standing African American officers’ club at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Grant projects also include statewide surveys to identify lesser-known civil rights sites, planning exhibits and interpretive trails, and collecting oral histories.

Congress appropriated funding for the African American Civil Rights Grants Program in 2016 through the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). The HPF uses revenue from federal oil leases on the Outer Continental Shelf, providing assistance for a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars. For the second year of this grants program, Congress increased funding from $8 million to $13 million in 2017.
Grant-supported projects include surveys and documentation, interpretation and education, oral histories, architectural services, historic structure reports, planning, and physical preservation.

Projects receiving an African American Civil Rights grants include:

StateProjectGranteeAmount

ArkansasPreserving the History of Central High SchoolLittle Rock School District$499,218ArkansasDreamland Ballroom Public Access ProjectFriends of Dreamland$499,668

For the complete list, please see the original article

www.nps.gov

Dance Like Everyone’s Watching: Friends’ fancy footwork highlight of fundraiser

A troupe of Irish dancers stole the show, and the trophy, at the eighth annual Dancing Into Dreamland. The event, hosted by the Friends of Dreamland, was held on Nov. 3 in the ballroom, part of Taborian Hall Museum in Little Rock.

A silent auction kicked off the evening. Board member Ryk St. Vincentand event founder Kerry McCoy made opening remarks before yeilding the mics to KTHV’s Craig O’Neill and Adam “Poolboy” Dunaway of KLAL, “Alice” 107.7.

Sarah and Rick Pinedo, 2016 winners, performed an exhibition tango just before competition began. The O’Donovan School of Irish Dance stole the competition with its fancy footwork. Fan favorites were students from Shuffles and Ballet II, performing a musical-theater routing to “Shoeless Joe.”

Other contestants included Megan Walker and Micah McClung, who danced the Lindy Hop. Five-year-old Nora Robertson and her adult partner, Daniel Felts, performed an East Coast Swing routine. New Creation Dance Co. did a bit of dance-versus-viloin performance art. Ziege Morehart and Devin Conyer, brought the bolero. Kim and Mike Nelson got the crowd engaged with “their own brand of sexy dance” (complete with jungle costumes); Abby Robertson and Daniel Felts chose a little cha-cha.

Judging the contest were David Miller – Swingin’ Down the Lane radio-show host – and recipient of a special award of the night for his long time participation in the contest. Also judging were Anna Kimmel, Arkansas Reparatory Theatre director of education; and restaurateur Amy Kelley Bell of South on Main. Guests texted their votes at the end of the competition segment.

Proceeds will go toward an elevator for the Dreamland Ballroom, the site of big-name concerts for black audiences during the days of Jim Crow segregation. The ballroom was featured in the regional Emmy Award Winning documentary Dream Land: Little Rock’s West 9th Street.

See photos from the event here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/dreamlandballroom/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10159770140310121

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