BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — The Birmingham Black Radio Museum and the Saint Paul United Methodist Church are among 11 historic sites across Alabama set to receive grants that go toward preservation.

The sites chosen are “related to civil rights and the African American struggle for equality.”

Alabama Representative Terri Sewell announced Monday that over $3.6 million in funding from the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Grant Program is being awarded to help preserve historic sites throughout Alabama.

The grants are funded by the Historic Preservation Fund and administered by the NPS. Grants fund a broad range of planning, development, and research projects for historic sites including: survey, inventory, documentation, interpretation, education, architectural services, historic structure reports, preservation plans, and “bricks and mortar” repair.

The grants, amounting to $3,665,408, will go to the following historic sites throughout Alabama:

  • $500,000 to Birmingham’s Saint Paul United Methodist Church for preservation, restoration, and repair
  • $50,000 to the Birmingham Black Radio Museum for the permanent exhibit at the Carver Theatre
  • $499,799 to Auburn University for stabilization and exterior rehabilitation of the Tankersley Rosenwald School in Hope Hull
  • $469,500 to the Alabama Historical Commission for stabilization and preservation of the Schooner Clotilda in Mobile, the Last-known Slave Ship to Import Enslaved Africans to the United States
  • $500,000 to the Mount Zion Center Foundation, Inc. in Montgomery for the rehabilitation of the Mount Zion AME Zion Church Memorial Annex
  • $50,000 to the Alabama Historical Commission for the Freedom Rides Museum Interior Exhibit Plan in Montgomery
  • $50,000 to the City of Montgomery for the civil engineering of “The Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery, Alabama: The Planned Destruction of a Prosperous African American Community”
  • $46,588 to Auburn University for “Memory and the March: Oral Histories with Selma’s Foot Soldiers”
  • $500,000 to the Historic Brown Chapel AME Church Preservation Society, Inc. for the preservation of Selma’s endangered Historic Brown Chapel AME Church 
  • $500,000 to the Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church Selma AL Legacy Foundation, Inc. for critical systems and accessibility upgrades to Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church
  • $499,521 to the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation for rehabilitation of the Historic Sullivan Building for use as a community and culture center