Mapping Black history

Historically, accounts of the Chesapeake Bay watershed have too regularly excluded Black voices and narratives. This 400-year omission affects how and where conservation takes place. To begin to right this wrong and tell the full story of local watersheds and landscapes, a major new project is underway to document African American sites in the region.

The $400,000 project will identify and map African American cultural sites to support their conservation, guided by an advisory committee of professionals dedicated to preserving African American history. Leading the project are five of the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership’s member organizations: The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Park Service Chesapeake Bay, and the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

As home to some of America’s first colonies, the Chesapeake Bay watershed region has significant meaning to African American culture. Many major tobacco plantations were located there, as were multiple stops on the Underground Railroad. The watershed includes numerous battlegrounds of the Civil War, as well as notable places of activism in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

Once collected, data on the historic sites will be publicly available through state-level and Chesapeake Conservation Partnership cultural resource information systems to inform land use and planning decisions. Once a site is registered in the system, organizers hope that surrounding communities will work toward its preservation.

Kirsten Ferguson is a frequent contributor to Saving Land, the Land Trust Alliance's quarterly magazine.