Historic Black cemetery wins $750K grant for preservation work

A federal grant worth $750,000 is going toward the preservation of a historic Black cemetery in Cincinnati viewed as symbolic of the longstanding fight for equal rights in the United States.

The National Park Service awarded the funds to The United Colored American Cemetery in the Madisonville neighborhood through the Historic Preservation Fund‘s History of Equal Rights grant program.

This year grants went to sites significant to the equal rights of women, laborers, Hispanics, African Americans and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The United Colored Cemetery is one of the oldest African American burial grounds in Ohio. The dedication of its current site on Duck Creek Road took place in 1883. However, it includes many graves moved from an earlier cemetery in Avondale that closed to make way for white development, per the Park Service.

With these grant dollars, Union Baptist Church, which maintains the property, plans to make structural repairs to burial vaults, clean monuments and perform other repairs. They’ll also make security enhancements and improve accessibility.

“In our American experiment to create a more perfect union, we’ve struggled to meet our core principle of equal rights for all, but we continue moving forward in order to achieve a better future,” said Chuck Sams, director of the National Park Service.

Preserving American history one building at a time

Administered by the National Park Service, the Historic Preservation Fund uses revenue from federal oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf to assist with a broad range of preservation projects. The goal is to help lessen the loss of nonrenewable resources and support the maintenance of other irreplaceable resources, without using tax dollars.

Since its establishment in 1977, the HPF has provided more than $2 billion in historic preservation grants to governments and community organizations so they can perform important work to restore and/or maintain vital community structures.

A total of $5 million went to eight projects across six states for this round of History of Equal Rights grant funding. Those projects include the second phase of the rehabilitation of the Eleanor B. Rainey Memorial Institute Building in Cleveland, which received $750,000 as well.

“The National Park Service is proud to help states, Tribes, local governments and nonprofit organizations invest in locally led preservation of historic structures which tell hidden stories of our nation’s history,” Sams said.

The United Colored American Cemetery