WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER RECEIVES $1.1 MILLION GRANT FROM THE MELLON FOUNDATION’S HUMANITIES IN PLACE PROGRAM TO FUND PROGRAMMING AND PRESERVATION INITIATIVES
Grant is largest award in Weeksville’s 50+ year history
Brooklyn, NY (May 18, 2023)—Weeksville Heritage Center (WHC) today announced that the center was awarded $1.1 million from the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place grant program. The three-year grant will support maintenance and renovation of the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses and continued community-based and artist residency programs at Weeksville and surrounding neighborhoods.
Founded by James Weeks in the 1830s, Weeksville was home to the free black community before the Civil War. The cultural center, which oversees a 23,000-square-foot visitor facility and maintains the historic Hunterfly Road Houses, three wood-frame homes that were built between the 1840s and 1880s.
With the Foundation’s support, Weeksville can more effectively and proactively address the structural integrity of the Hunterfly houses; speak to the timeliness and urgency of this work brought on by climate change; and grow cultural programs surrounding the Houses, which will mean more visitors while assuring that the highest standards for historic preservation are upheld.
“For generations, Weeksville has historically served as a safe space and oasis in which to build community, enjoy freedom, and celebrate self determination,” said Dr. Raymond Codrington, President and CEO of Weeksville. “Now is the transformational moment for us to strategically address the structural challenges of making our work sustainable and ensure that Weeksville’s legacy is cemented in African American history in Brooklyn and beyond.”
The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs designated Weeksville as the first new Cultural Institutions Group member since 1997, joining the ranks of organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. The distinction allows the center to receive regular funding and maintenance from the City.
About Weeksville Heritage Center
Weeksville Heritage Center is a historic site and cultural center in Central Brooklyn that uses education, arts, and a social justice lens to preserve, document, and inspire engagement with the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America, and the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses.
About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.