By Jacquelyne Germain, CNN
(CNN) — Emmett Till grew up in a two-story, red brick house on the South Side of Chicago before leaving the city in 1955 to visit family in Mississippi, where the 14-year-old Black teen was lynched after being accused of whistling at a White woman.
An African American cultural preservation organization on Tuesday announced that Emmett’s childhood home will be one of 33 sites and organizations across the country to receive a portion of $3 million in grants.
The news comes after a recent discovery of an unserved arrest warrant for the White woman who accused Emmett of making advances toward her, sparking the events that led to his death, as well as new details about her unpublished memoir.
The grant money from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, an initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will go toward the preservation and protection of various locations integral to Black history. The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund was launched in 2017 with the purpose of “elevating and preserving the stories and places of African American resilience, activism and achievement,” the fund’s Executive Director Brent Leggs told CNN Tuesday.
Leggs, who also serves as the senior vice president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said the 2022 selection of grant recipients highlights the beauty and complexity of Black culture and history in America.
“This year, we wanted to ensure that we were balancing public memory and not just presenting places associated with a painful past, but uplifting stories of arts, culture, entrepreneurship and achievement that are fundamental to the nation itself,” Leggs said.
This is the fifth year the fund has awarded national grants to places symbolizing significant aspects of Black history, with new sites being selected every year. This year, Leggs said the $3 million encompasses grants ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 going to the various locations based on the fund’s four funding categories: building capital, increasing organizational reach, project planning and education and programming.
Here are some of the sites that will be preserved, how much they received from the fund and the stories behind their cultural significance.
The home of Mamie Till Mobley and Emmett Till
Money allocated: $150,000
In the years leading up to her son’s gruesome murder that spurred the civil rights movement in America, Mamie Till Mobley and Emmett lived in a two-story Victorian house in Chicago’s South Side Woodlawn neighborhood.
After Emmett’s death, Till Mobley continued to live in the house until 1962, working to honor the legacy of her only son while devoting her life to the advancement of civil rights.
Last year, the house, built in 1895, was granted landmark status by the Chicago City Council.
The grant will focus on the creation of a project director position centered on programming and heritage projects, including repairing the home’s interior to resemble how it looked in 1955 when Emmett last lived there.
The birthplace of bebop jazz
Money allocated: $100,000
Detroit’s Blue Bird Inn served as an institute for Black musicians who were integral to the development of modern music globally. Opened in 1937, “The Bird” featured live music and was a safe haven for Detroit’s Black community who lived in a deeply segregated city post-WWII.
Performers at the historic site included renowned jazz artists such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sarah Vaughan.
In 2020, the site was formally named a Historic District by the city of Detroit.
As part of the grant project, the Blue Bird will undergo a series of interior rehabilitation projects with the intent of serving as an archive, music venue and gathering space for the Detroit community once again.
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Read More: Emmett Till’s Chicago home among sites granted funding earmarked for preserving