Commemorating African American History Through National Historic Landmarks

Turkiya L. Lowe

National Historic Landmarks (NHLs) are buildings, sites, historic districts, objects, and structures designated by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior because their historical significance is of transcendent importance to the heritage of the United States. They have had a central impact or represent an essential concept of the nation as a whole, not just in local or state history. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 (Public Law 74-292) created the National Historic Landmarks Program (NHL Program) to facilitate the identification and nomination of properties for NHL designation, which acts as “the official recognition by the federal government of the national significance of historic properties” (1). Currently, there are 2,444 NHLs in the United States.

In 2006, the National Park Service (NPS) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) partnered to undertake the African American NHLs Assessment Study (Assessment Study), which evaluated the comprehensiveness of the NHL Program’s efforts to commemorate nationally significant African American participation in U.S. history. The Assessment Study’s overarching goals were: 1) to ensure that existing and future NHLs are broadly representative of African Americans’ contributions to the nation’s history; and 2) to find strategies to increase future research and documentation efforts leading to NHL nominations. The full Assessment Study report was released February 2008 and is located on the NHL Program website at: <http://www.nps.gov/history/nhl/themes/Special%20Studies/ AA%20NHL%20Assessment%20Study.pdf>.

Unfortunately, the Assessment Study concluded that overall, current NHLs provide only fair coverage of nationally significant African American history and reflect a limited range of events, ideas, themes, and significant individuals in that history. Determination of this conclusion came in August 2007, when scholars of African American history and preservation professionals met at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to evaluate current NHL designations and to suggest thematic priorities for future research and nomination efforts. The Scholars Meeting Group, as they were called, included: Jeffrey Harris, National Trust for Historic Preservation; Cheryl LaRoche, University of Maryland; Waldo Martin, University of California, Berkeley; Michéle Gates Moresi, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Larry Rivers, Fort Valley State University; Harvard Sitkoff, University of New Hampshire; and Patricia Sullivan, University of South Carolina. Before meeting, each scholar provided a written assessment of the existing historical themes documented by the NHL Program, identified emerging scholarship in the field of African American history that merited future research and documentation within the NHL Program, and suggested nondesignated properties that may best represent this new scholarship.

As part of the Assessment Study, the NHL Program identified 174 NHLs and forty-seven national parks that represent African American history in the United States. The Scholars Meeting Group determined that NHLs commemorating African American history in certain topics—such as the American West, labor history, and colonial and early America—were noticeably sparse. In addition, some historical themes had distressingly lower NHL representation than others and some lacked any NHLs depicting African American contributions. For example, fewer than ten NHLs illustrated African American history in each of the following topics: agriculture, archeology, communications, community planning and development, economics, engineering, entertainment/recreation, health/medicine, invention, landscape architecture, philosophy, science, and transportation. Even more alarming, no NHLs have been designated to illustrate African American contributions in the fields of art, conservation, and maritime history.

The Scholars Meeting Group also determined that existing NHLs do not sufficiently illustrate recent scholarship in African American history. The NPS recognizes the pivotal role the academic community plays in preserving America’s diverse past. Without scholarly research and documentation, properties cannot be identified and nominated for NHL designation. To correct the disparity between recent scholarship and nomination efforts, the Scholars Meeting Group recommended ten areas for future research and documentation: Black Freedom Struggles (those whose goal was not specifically integrationist); grassroots and vernacular history; institutional history; intellectual history; education and literacy; the era of Jim Crow; racial violence and intimidation; migration and movement; family life and relationships; and black recreation, leisure, and entertainment. The Scholars Meeting Group viewed these themes as a beginning point to address gaps in NHL documentation of African American history.

The Assessment Study illustrates the ongoing challenges of ensuring the full representation of United States heritage. For its part, the NPS knows it must act proactively to ensure that future nomination efforts reflect current thinking about the American past by creating a network of scholars who are invested in the findings and recommendations of the Assessment Study. The NPS’s first act is dissemination of the Assessment Study to the academic community, local and national preservation organizations, community leaders, and the general public to increase public awareness and interest in these challenges.

Future nominations must reflect recent and emerging research. As a place to begin, the Assessment Study has identified over two hundred historic properties associated with African Americans for further study as potential NHLs. In addition, forty-seven current NHLs need revision of their original documentation to include description of their previously unknown association with nationally significant African American history. These properties encompass a wide range of historical topics and issues in U.S. history. Preparation of NHL nominations for the newly identified properties and revision of existing NHL documentation would greatly increase representation of African American contributions to the heritage of the United States. The NPS urges scholars to embrace the challenges shown by the Assessment Study and to partner with the NHL Program to increase research, documentation, and nomination of properties associated with African American history. 

Endnotes

1. National Register Bulletin, 1999, p. 9