WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Park Service has announced funding for 39 projects in 20 states that will preserve and highlight the sites and stories associated with the civil rights movement and the African-American experience.

“Through the African American Civil Rights Grant Program, we’re helping our public and private partners tell unique and powerful stories of the African American struggle for equality in the 20th Century,” National Park Service Acting Director Michael Reynolds said.

Congress appropriated funding for the new NPS African American Civil Rights Grant Program in 2016 through the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF).

States, tribes, local governments and nonprofit organizations applied for a broad range of planning, preservation and research projects for historic sites associated with the civil rights movement and the African-American experience. The competitive grant program is funding projects worth $7,750,000, including surveys, documentation, interpretation, education, oral histories, planning, and bricks and mortar preservation.

Statewide surveys to find stories and sites that are not well known will be funded in Ohio and several other states.