The Freeman Center's application, submitted in partnership with the CT Trust for Historic Preservation, was chosen from a pool of over 800 requests for support. Our grant award will allow award-winning NCA: Northeast Collaborative Architects(of Newport, RI; Middletown, CT & Washington, DC) to begin work immediately. We plan to set a new and high standard for architecture in Bridgeport's South End. The houses are in good hands.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation's new Action Fund is a $25 million, multi-year, national initiative aimed at uplifting the largely overlooked contributions of African Americans by protecting and restoring African American historic sites, and uncovering hidden stories of African Americans connected to historic sites across the nation. The Freeman Center is one of 16 grantees sharing more than $1 million in grants to support grassroots preservation efforts to preserve sites across the country.
Free Little Liberians like Mary and Eliza Freeman born in Derby, CT were deeply connected to a wider Black Atlantic community that was boldly and bravely seeking to create new opportunities for Black and Native American citizenship, outside of the denigrating contexts of slavery and servitude.
Saving the 1848 Freeman houses saves the last African American settlement of its kind from extinction. The Freeman Houses are irreplaceable physical evidence of an early, international "Underground Railroad destination settlement" - established in 1822, before slavery ended in Connecticut and the United States.
"The Freeman Houses hold a story untold by any other place in Connecticut," said Jane Montanaro, Executive Director of the CT Trust. "This grant validates their national importance and the urgent need to act now to preserve one of the most endangered historic places in America."
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