Preservation Society announces fall 2022 grant winners

Press release from Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County:

In response to our most competetive round of grant applications to date, our Board of Directors voted to extend our yearly funding from $20,000 to $30,000!  In this, our first round of funding this fiscal year, we are granting $15,000 to deserving preservation projects in our community.

$1500 matching grant to the Norwood Park Neighborhood Association
The Norwood Park neighborhood is home to one of our City’s secret sidewalks.  The 100 plus year old walkway spans more than 300 feet connecting the residents of Norwood Park to the goods and services of Merrimon Avenue. This grant will fund the research and documentation of the history of this walkway in hopes of ensuring its preservation in the neighborhood for another 100 years.

$2500 for Asheville: A Graphic Novel History
Author Matthew K. Manning and artist Jarrett Rutland are creating this 100-page graphic novel retelling of Asheville’s storied history in hopes that it will resonate not just with longtime fans of our city, but also with a younger audience.  The story will lead the reader through history from prehistoric times to today, letting them see the city form first-hand.

$4000 to the Stumptown Neighborhood Association
This grant will fund video interviews for story gathering and sharing in order to celebrate, honor and preserve the rich history of this neighborhood.

From the application: Stumptown was a vibrant, closely knit Black neighborhood located “in the hollow under the brow of the hill” between what is now Riverside Cemetery, Pearson Drive, and Courtland Avenue. It had active churches, stores, and community cohesion. Black residents today still call their neighborhood Stumptown, though urban renewal and gentrification have thoroughly eroded what was a once a thriving Black community.

Research shows that Stumptown is older than the adjacent Montford neighborhood – it developed around a piece of property on Pearson Drive given to Tempie Avery by her former enslaver Nicholas Woodfin in 1868. As Black history is not as present in written historical records, we do not have an exact date of the establishment of Stumptown, though most accounts place its inception around 1880.

The Stumptown neighborhood was redlined in the late 1930s, but remained a strong community through the 1960s, despite systemic neglect which made the area vulnerable to displacement. The majority of homes and lots in the neighborhood were taken by the City of Asheville during urban renewal in the 1970s for the Montford Recreation Complex. With the naming of the complex after Montford and the subsequent gentrification of the area, the story of Stumptown has been mostly hidden.

There has been some documentation of stories from Stumptown residents, but it is not easily accessible to the general public. While the early history of the neighborhood was acknowledged by the renaming of the community center to the Tempie Avery Center, there is no signage acknowledging the existence of the Stumptown neighborhood or the contributions of its residents.

The Stumptown Neighborhood Association wants to address this erasure and build awareness of this history and culture through story gathering/sharing and signage.

$2000 to Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
This grant is for the installation of protective barriers to protect the recently completed conservation of two frescos painted in the summer of 1944 by luminary of the Mexican Mural Renaissance, Jean Charlot.

$5000 to La Esperanza Real Estate Cooperative
This funding will support the extensive repairs and upgrades needed at 528 Emma Road.

From the application: The La Esperanza (“The Hope” in English) building, which was built in 1914, is located in the center of the Emma community. According to Andrea Clarke via her family oral histories, it was constructed by the renowned Black mason James Vester Miller and his crew.

La Esperanza is cooperatively owned by over 30 families in the community, many of whom also invested significant time and labor to fix up the building after it was purchased. Thanks to PODER Emma’s community development efforts which made this possible, these community members, including Latinx immigrants, who might not otherwise have access to owning real estate are able to build community wealth through La Esperanza.

The building houses Colaborativa La Milpa, a collective of Latinx-led grassroots groups working to uplift and protect the community. The members of the collective are Compañeros Inmigrantes de las Montañas en Acción (CIMA), Raíces Emma – Erwin, PODER Emma, and Ma hñäkihu: Indigenous Language Preservation Project.
La Esperanza also houses worker-owned cooperatives Power in Number Bookkeeping, Cenzontle Language Justice Cooperative, Quetzal Community Real Estate, and Chispas.

Serving as a community hub, community members visit La Esperanza to access supportive services provided by La Milpa’s organizations and the co-ops. A large community room on the first floor of La Esperanza is used for youth programs, classes, meetings, and events.