About Us

In 2013 the mayors of five of America's most representative historic Black towns and settlements (Grambling, LA; Mound Bayou, MS; Eatonville, FL; Hobson City, AL; Tuskegee, AL) began to discuss ways to individually and collectively preserve and promote the heritage and culture of their communities. The informal discussions evolved into a series of structured conference calls in April of 2014. The calls produced a series of strategic actions:

First, the mayors agreed to participate in exchange visits to each town.

Next, the mayors agreed to use the discipline of historic preservation as a common tool.

The mayors then agreed to engage the assistance of a professional consultant to provide advanced expertise and identify funding opportunities.

Next the mayors endorsed two funding proposals. One, the National Trust for Historic Preservation Innovation Grant, was funded with the following objectives:

• Development of an endangered/threatened historic resource mitigation plan and initiation for each community.
• Strategic plan development for implementing active formal stewardship mechanisms and education, as appropriate for each community.
• Historic preservation 'theme based' cultural tourism development, including marketing, programming, exhibit planning, and advanced interpretation and exposure of collective national historic content.
• Development of model community based and interstate educational programs (primary, secondary, adult).
• Collaborative educational workshop presentation, exhibit, and marketing promotion to a national in January, 2015 (at 26th Annual ZORA! Festival in Eatonville, Florida).

In September of 2014 the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, Inc. (HBTSA) was incorporated and recognized as a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization by the Internal Revenue Service in January of 2015.

The vision of the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, Inc. is to protect and preserve for future generations the heritage, history and cultural traditions of Alliance members such that those who follow will have the ability to assume active stewardship, to understand, interpret and appreciate these historic places through the lenses of their inhabitants.

The mission of the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, Inc. is to work collaboratively to actively preserve and promote the heritage, history and culture of these historic places by utilizing their human, environmental, built (engineering, landscape, architecture), arts and humanities resources to nurture economic development and to support an enhanced quality of life for their residents, neighbors and fellow Americans.