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African-American issues take spotlight in two Preservation Week lectures By John Bennett Leah Brown, a Savannah College of Art and Design historic preservation graduate student and treasurer of the Student Preservation Association, had a definite goal in mind when she helped organize two lectures on May 10 as part of Preservation Week at SCAD. “I think sometimes the African-American population is forgotten in Savannah, especially when it comes to preservation,” she said. “So, I thought it would be good to have a day devoted to just that: things that African Americans in Savannah could relate to.” Jeffrey A. Harris offered “African-American Cultural Preservation,” the first of two lectures May 10. Harris described his work as program coordinator for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African-American Historic Places Initiative — a two-year project designed to “provide an opportunity for the leaders of the African-American academic and preservation communities to come together to discuss the technical and interpretive challenges facing African-American historic sites, and to develop new solutions for addressing those challenges.” The initiative was funded by a $250,000 grant from the Ford Foundation and announced in December 2002. “I went to the National Trust conference last September and I listened to one of his sessions,” Brown said. “I thought he was a very engaging speaker. I thought what he had to say had a lot to do with Savannah.” Harris now serves as the Trust’s first diversity director, a position he said includes not just preservation of African-American heritage, but also Hispanic, Asian and European-American historic resources. He explained that one of the biggest problems facing the Trust is the gentrification that often occurs along with preservation and stressed the importance of finding ways for African-American residents to stay in their homes. One solution, he said, is to work with longtime residents to help them prepare for gentrification. He said preservationists should “canvass the neighborhoods to tell people what’s going to happen.” Harris said he understands that residents might be tempted by offers for their homes but should realize that the house they sell for $120,000 will increase in value dramatically as gentrification picks up steam. “If you have never had very much, $120,000 is a lot of money. But if someone comes out of nowhere and starts offering lots of money, stay where you are, because something is afoot,” he said. Jeanne Cyriaque followed Harris with “Georgia’s Hidden Treasure: The Gullah/Geechee Culture of the Sea Islands.” Cyriaque is the African-American Programs Coordinator for the Georgia African-American Historic Preservation Network and editor of Reflections, a quarterly newsletter of the GAAHPN. “She introduced the culture by explaining the slave trade and the countries in Africa that the slaves came from,” Brown said. “She detailed the different areas where these cultural groups are found. Some of the cultures are more threatened than others by encroaching development.” Although Brown has seen Cyriaque and Harris speak before, she said she was able to take away new information from their lectures and knows others benefited from the experience. “People seemed to enjoy both speakers and they took something away from it, and that’s really all I could hope for,” she said. “I found that they were both very passionate and devoted to what they were doing and that was inspiring to me.” Modern Monday A representative of an organization with an unusual name but an important purpose described the group’s work in Georgia May 9 as part of Preservation Week. Thomas Little, president of DOCOMOMO’s Georgia chapter, explained the curious moniker stands for “DOcumentation and COnservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the MOdern MOvement.” Little said the group is concerned not just with buildings, but with other examples of modern movement design including building interiors and furniture, landscapes and gardens, and even works of civil engineering created between 1920 and 1970. The Georgia chapter was founded in 2003 and is affiliated with both the U.S. and international DOCOMOMO organizations. Little said the Georgia chapter’s work has so far been concentrated in Atlanta, including efforts to save the Atlanta Constitution building, which was built for the newspaper in 1947 and 1948 and is threatened by demolition to make way for a proposed multimodal transit station. Little explained the process for including properties on DOCOMOMO Georgia’s registry, which is intended to serve as a “comprehensive database of significant modern movement resources within the state of Georgia.” Once a completed nomination form or “fiche” is reviewed by the Georgia chapter, it can be forwarded to the national DOCOMOMO organization for possible inclusion in the national registry. While inclusion on the registry does not offer legal protection against demolition or alteration, Little said it is important in other ways. “It doesn’t have teeth, but it can assist,” he said, because the research conducted in fiche preparation can aid in efforts to preserve buildings. “The scholarship required can serve as ammunition if there is a threat to the building.” Little said he wants to expand the chapter’s activities to other areas of Georgia and Savannah in particular. The Drayton Tower apartment building is indicative of the type of building that interests the group, according to Little. “I started visiting Savannah in the early 1990s and I always thought, ‘Wow, what a building’,” he said. Little said he also imagines ways for DOCOMOMO Georgia and SCAD to cooperate. “I would love to set up a student chapter,” he said. For more information, visit http://docomomoga.org. |
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