The mission of Black Heritage Preservation received a boost when a $4 million dollar trust fund was established to preserve a list of 35 historic Black churches in the United States. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund launched its “Preserving Black Churches” program in 2021 to help support ongoing or planned restoration work in historic congregations that are caretakers of cultural artifacts and bear monumental legacies. Like many black cemeteries, some church renovations were imperiled or severely postponed three years ago after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which reduced the capacity of many houses of worship to serve the public at an unprecedented time of need.
“The pandemic made it harder to maintain the building,” Marshall said. “I just heard God tell me, ‘You’re not going back into the same building that you came out of.’ The people have been very faithful, they’ve been waiting on my vision and it just came true.”
“After all, these are our sacred sites, which our ancestors built from the ground up, and we must do everything we can to ensure their survival,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., the professor and historian who sits on the action fund’s national advisory council.
The congregation received a grant of $200,000 to support critical restoration of the building’s structural integrity. Marshall said the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund’s efforts have restored hope that Varick Memorial can resume a wider array of services to the community.
“If you don’t know where you’ve come from, it’s hard to press on and go to even greater heights, to deeper depths in your life and in your legacy,” the reverend said.
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