Mount Morris Ascension Church in Harlem, Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, and dozens of Black churches around the country are receiving significant preservation grants. A total of $8.5 million is going to 33 churches, and funding is intended to support project planning, capital projects, and community programming.
The grant money is being provided by the African American Cultural Heritage Fund through their fourth annual round of the Preserving Black Churches program. The African American Cultural Heritage Fund is dedicated to preserving sites of historical significance within the African American community.
Last year, for example, the Cultural Heritage fund announced the completed restoration of Nina Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, North Carolina.
To be eligible for grant funding, churches, associated buildings, and landscapes must be at least 50 years old. However, churches younger than this can be eligible for grants if they demonstrate historic, architectural, or cultural significance.
Amounts awarded this year range from $50,000-$500,000.
“No pillar of the African American community has been more central to its history, identity, and social justice vision than the Black Church,” Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., advisor for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, said in a statement.
Mt. Morris Ascension in Harlem was awarded $350,000. These funds will support the church’s roof replacement, masonry repointing, and stained glass conservation.
“2026 is the 120th Anniversary of this church in the community. The grant is a blessing that will help us to make sure that it will be here for another 120 years and more,” said Rev. Althelia Pond.
At the Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, grant money will help fund the future roof repairs, window and building restoration, and future capital projects.
All of the churches receiving funding have historic pasts and served as important places for African American communal growth throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King was baptized and later became a preacher, is using their funding to help a graduate fellow in the design process of a new addition to the church.
The Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in Rochester, famous for its connection to the Underground Railroad, will use grant money to document and interpret the church’s history. This will be through guided tours, oral histories, and digital engagement projects.
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a centerpiece of the Civil Rights movement, which suffered an act of racist domestic terrorism in 1963, is also one of the grant recipients. The church is planning to use grant money to hire a director of development, alongside the implementation of a preservation endowment and fundraising campaign. These efforts are designed to enhance the church’s religious, civic, and educational contributions to the community.
“America’s 250th anniversary is an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable legacy of our nation’s historically Black churches,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and strategic advisor to the CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a statement. “They are essential civic institutions that have anchored democracy, community leadership, and collective care for generations. By investing in their preservation today, we are safeguarding not just historic buildings and architecture, but a living legacy of resilience and social progress for the future.”