DENVER — In December, the National Park Service announced more than $1 million in Underrepresented Community Grants for projects across the country, including Colorado.
Of that total, the History Colorado's State Historic Preservation Office was awarded $74,998 for a statewide African American travel resources intensive survey, or a survey of Green Book sites in the state. These locations are where African Americans could safely stay during the time of segregation, according to NPS and History Colorado.
This is the third time History Colorado has received an Underrepresented Community Grant from the NPS.
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The office will also use this new grant to nominate one of those locations to both the National and State Registers of Historic Places. As of 2020, 8% of locations on the National Register represented communities of color or women. In Colorado, that dropped to only 5% of properties, according to History Colorado.
The funding will allow the office to build on the African American Travel and Recreation Resources Survey Plan, which was completed in 2021 and established a blueprint for documenting the history and experiences of African American travelers during segregation, according to History Colorado.
This marks the first statewide effort in Colorado's history to "focus exclusively on African American travel and recreation resources, which have been under-researched and underrepresented in the past," the organization said.
In the past, the resources were clustered around Denver, Pueblo and Colorado Springs. The survey is focused on expanding that out to rural parts of the state.
READ MORE: 'The Green Book': Jim Crow era travelers' guide had stops in Denver
“The stories of these locations where African Americans could find refuge while traveling across a segregated America are an important facet of our shared history. They were truly tiny oases of safety in an unsafe world,” said Patrick Eidman, chief preservation officer and deputy state historic preservation officer. “This grant will allow us to engage with Colorado’s Black community, and highlight the important history of these places so we can better understand this difficult period of history and how African Americans adapted, and persevered despite widespread racism and racially motivated violence."
NPS's Underrepresented Community Grants program began in 2014. Since then, it has provided almost $6 million to state and tribal historic preservation offices and certified local governments to diversify the the National Register of Historic Places through surveys and nominations, according to the NPS.
