Collaboration

Save Our African American Treasures is a project that realizes our aim to be a place of collaboration. Treasures requires a joint effort and provides opportunities for all partners and audience members to benefit.

The Museum will work with the National Park Service's significant historic places program, National Historic Landmarks (NHL), in its Assessment Study of African American historic places. Properties are designated as NHLs because their historical significance is national in scope. It is important for the NHL Program to reflect and commemorate United States history fully and to incorporate African Americans.

The study aims to assess what properties have already been designated NHLS, and to identify potentially more properties to be nominated for NHL designation in the future. A group of scholars and preservation practitioners will meet at the offices of the National Museum of African American History and Culture to review, discuss, and explore topics, themes, and places that will help identify more nominations.

For more information about the National Historic Landmarks program, visit www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/.

*The Walker Theatre building was the hub of the beauty industry initiated and developed by Madam C. J. Walker, America's first female self-made millionaire. One of the most successful black businesses in the United States in its time, the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company headquarters employed 3,000 women and served as a community cultural center with its ballroom and theater. The theater was restored and reopened during the 1980s. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991.