City of Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board awarded $75,000 History of Equal Rights grant from the National Park Service

2023
  • Grant to nominate the Detroit Association of Women’s Club to the National Register of Historic Places
  • Grant to provide a historic structural report of the Detroit Association of Women’s Club building 

 

The City of Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board (HDAB) is pleased to announce that it is one of only eight projects selected by the National Park Service (NPS) to receive a $75,000 History of Equal Rights (HER) Grant. The grant is funded through the Historic Preservation Fund and focuses on preserving sites affiliated with the struggle for all people to attain equal rights in the United States.  

The grant project focuses on the historic Detroit Association of Colored Women’s Club (DACWC) headquarters, known today as the Detroit Association of Women’s Club (DAWC). The grant will establish a historic structures report, which will help direct the organization’s efforts to maintain and preserve the building. Additionally, the project will complete an individual nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. This designation will allow both the Detroit Association of Women’s Clubs building and the City of Detroit to seek out future funding to help pay for rehabilitation of the structure through philanthropic efforts and financial opportunities via the National Park Service, Michigan’s Certified Local Government program, and other preservation initiatives.  

The headquarter sits at the corner of East Ferry Avenue and Brush Street in Detroit’s Cultural Center neighborhood. Originally built in 1913 as the home for William Lennane, it was acquired by the DACWC in 1941 under the club president’s leadership - Rosa Slade-Gragg. The club was founded in 1921 from the coalition of eight clubs of Black women who organized to confront social and welfare issues within the Black community.  

The Detroit Association of Women’s Club grant project is one of five recent grants awarded to the Historic Designation Advisory Board that aims to document and highlight underrepresented communities in Detroit. Other projects include an intensive-level survey of Eight Mile/Wyoming and developing historic contexts for Latinx, Middle Eastern, and Women’s histories in Detroit. 

This project is being supported in part by the History of Equal Rights (HER) grant from the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. The HPF has funded more than $2 billion since its inception in 1977 towards historic preservation grants. For more information about the History of Equal Rights grant program, please visit go.nps.gov/her. 

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The Historic Designation Advisory Board is a nine-member body appointed by the Detroit City Council that advises the City Council on various historic preservation matters including requests for the designation of local historic districts, according to the City Charter and the State Local Historic District Enabling Act. The Advisory Board generally meets on the second Thursday of each month at 4:00 PM in the Committee of the Whole Room on the 13th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. For more information, please visit www.detroitmi.gov/hdab.