Robbinsville – The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced the award of $2.5 million in grants to 80 organizations across 39 states, including a Franklin-based group seeking to preserve and promote Cherokee history in western North Carolina – including Graham County.
The grants are awarded through the National Trust’s Telling the Full History Preservation Fund, made possible through a one-time National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant program funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021.
The grants will help to preserve, interpret, and activate historic places to tell the stories of historically underrepresented groups in our nation, including women, immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, Black Americans and Latino Americans.
“The National Trust for Historic Preservation is committed to telling the full American story, one of our key strategic priorities,” said Paul Edmondon, president and CEO, National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“This one-time nationwide grant program from NEH and the American Rescue Plan serves as a catalyst for this work, creating impact in communities across the country and highlighting stories that have been underrepresented in the places that we collectively preserve and interpret.”
The Franklin-based Nikwasi Initiative (nikwasi-initiative.org) preserves, protects, and promotes culture and heritage in the original homelands of the Cherokee people, including three points in Graham County: the Junaluska gravesite and memorial, Stecoah Valley Center, and Fort Lindsay and Graham County’s portion of the Trail of Tears.
The Nikwasi Initiative was founded to promote, interpret and link cultural and historic sites (such as the Noquisiyi and Cowee mounds) along a Cherokee Cultural Corridor, along with raising awareness and funds to pursue those efforts and exploring more opportunities for collaboration between the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and local communities.
The amount of grant money for the Nikwasi Initiative has not yet been released.
The process
In order to secure a broad range of applications, the National Trust for Historic Preservation conducted outreach to an expansive movement of people who care about diversifying the places that are preserved and interpreted for the public benefit.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation received 396 applications.
The applicants included submissions from humanities-based nonprofit organizations, such as state and local preservation organizations, historic sites, museums, historical societies, and genealogical associations.
It also included accredited academic programs in historic preservation, public history, as well as cultural studies of underrepresented groups. Additionally, it included local and state governmental agencies, such as state historic preservation offices, tribal historic preservation offices, city and county preservation offices and planning departments, state and local commissions focused on different aspects of heritage, and publicly owned historic sites and museums.
All 396 applications were reviewed and scored by an external Selection Committee of 31 subject matter experts. Many Selection Committee members noted that the applications submitted for the Telling the Full History Preservation Fund were some of the strongest they have seen in many years of reviewing federal humanities grants.
The 80 projects that received funding demonstrate the remarkable resilience and dedication of humanities organizations and institutions during an incredibly challenging time in our nation’s history.
Grants were awarded in four categories:
* Research, planning, and implementation of interpretation programs
* Research and documentation for local, state, and federal designations
* Architectural design and planning to preserve and activate historic places
* Training workshops to support interpretation and preservation of historic places.