{"id":2059087,"date":"2026-07-22T18:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2059087"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:01:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:01:52","slug":"getty-names-final-grantees-for-conserving-black-modernism-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2059087","title":{"rendered":"Getty Names Final Grantees for Conserving Black Modernism Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tThe Getty Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have announced the final cohort of grantees for the Conserving Black Modernism initiative, which focuses on preserving the\u00a0work of Black architects.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year\u2019s grantees range, which each receive $150,000 for a total of $750,000 for the cohort\u00a0from an urban park\u00a0to\u00a0a shopping mall.\u00a0The funding will\u00a0primarily be used to support historic structures report for the buildings that will help guide their future preservation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe five awardees are the\u00a0Central City Plaza in Milwaukee,\u00a0the\u00a0Martin Luther King Jr. Humanities Center at Texas Southern University in\u00a0Houston, the Park-Johnson Hall at Fisk University\u00a0in\u00a0Nashville,\u00a0the\u00a0Southwest Corridor\u00a0in\u00a0Boston, and\u00a0St. Mark AME Zion Church\u00a0in\u00a0East Chicago, Indiana. <\/p>\n

\n\tSeveral of the buildings are designed by groundbreaking architects: Alonzo Robinson Jr.\u00a0(of\u00a0Central City Plaza)\u00a0was\u00a0Wisconsin\u2019s first licensed Black architect;\u00a0Wendell Campbell\u00a0(St. Mark AME Zion Church) was\u00a0a co-founder and the first president of the National Organization of Minority Architects;\u00a0Moses McKissack III (Park-Johnson Hall) was the principal of the oldest Black-owned architecture firm in the US;\u00a0and John Saunders Chase Jr. (Martin Luther King Jr. Humanities Center) was the first licensed Black architect in Texas and the first African American to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe grantees, which range in completion from 1954 to 1987, also hold their own historical significance. The Central City Plaza was the first Black-owned and operated shopping mall in Milwaukee, while\u00a0TSU\u2019s Humanities Center was constructed in 1969, the year after King\u2019s assassination.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Southwest Corridor was built on land that was initially cleared for the construction of a highway but canceled after community activism; the resulting project, which includes the extension of the MBTA\u2019s Orange Line and\u00a0a 52-acre park that follows the metro\u00a0route,\u00a0\u201cprioritized community participation and included recreational facilities, community gardens and paths connecting to other\u00a0Boston park\u00a0systems,\u201d per a release.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cConserving Black Modernism has helped communities in nearly every region of the U.S. protect the work of Black architects and has helped broaden the very definition of modernist architecture,\u201d Getty Foundation director Joan Weinstein said in a statement. \u201cTeaming up with the National Trust over the past five years has allowed us to take actionable steps to preserve underrepresented sites that embody Black excellence in design, activism and resilience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Martin Luther King Jr. Humanities Center, Texas South University.<\/span>Courtesy Texas Southern University<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tConserving Black Modernism, which is managed by the National Trust\u2019s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, launched in 2022 after the Getty realized that\u00a0its\u00a0Keeping It Modern initiative, which gave a total of $11.8 million to conserve modernist structures across the US between 2014 and 2020, did not include a single building by a Black architect.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tConserving Black Modernism first started as a two-year grant-making project and was then expanded to run until 2026. It has given 26 historic sites a total of $4.85 million during its run.\u00a0The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund\u00a0has raised over $200 million since its establishment in 2017 toward the preservation of Black heritage in the US.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGetty\u2019s grants have supported our larger effort with the Action Fund to invest in communities that are preserving the full American story\u2014from the struggles for freedom and civil rights to the achievements of Black educators, architects, entrepreneurs, faith leaders, and culture bearers,\u201d said Brent Leggs, the National Trust\u2019s newly elected president who established the\u00a0Action Fund in his previous role. \u201cBy supporting local stewards and communities, we are helping ensure these stories\u00a0endure\u00a0for\u00a0generations to come.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe National Trust, a privately funded organization chartered by Congress in 1949,\u00a0has been at odds with the second Trump administration over the president\u2019s bypassing of\u00a0historic preservation laws and congressional approval to make changes to important buildings in Washington, D.C., like the Kennedy Center and the White House. The Trust\u00a0has filed suit against the administration\u00a0regarding\u00a0Trump\u2019s proposed name change to the Kennedy Center and a two-year renovation, as well as\u00a0his\u00a0demolition of the White House\u2019s East Wing for a ballroom.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/St.-Mark-AME-Zion-Church.jpeg?w=1024″] The Getty Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have announced the final cohort of grantees for the Conserving Black Modernism initiative, which focuses on preserving the\u00a0work of Black architects.\u00a0\u00a0 This year\u2019s grantees range, which each receive $150,000 for a total of $750,000 for the cohort\u00a0from an urban park\u00a0to\u00a0a shopping mall.\u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2059087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2059087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2059087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2059087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2059087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}