Rotate through each letter of our name above to learn about the foundation of our work.
The Center is based out of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. We are a small team of historic preservationists, memory workers, current graduate students, and fellows who are committed to preserving Black heritage and civil rights narratives in Philadelphia and beyond.
Rotate through each letter of our name above to learn about the foundation of our work.
Preservation is at a moment of intense introspection, critique, and change. While the traditional preservation methods of listing, legal protection, architectural conservation, and restoration still have their place, other, emergent methods of interpretation, management, storytelling, community engagement and adaptive reuse are urgently being explored. Our work applies both conventional and unconventional methods of historic preservation to meet the specific needs of the heritage site. CPCRS is committed to training the next generation of underrepresented minority practitioners, and restructure, rethink, and reform the field from the ground up.
Rotate through each letter of our name above to learn about the foundation of our work.
Civil Rights, in our work, refers to the Black experience in the US in the 19th and 20th centuries, not confined to the South nor to the critical period of 1954-1968. Our focus is on the long Black freedom struggle in the United States, from the founding of the country to the present, though we recognize that important civil rights histories and legacies draw on many other experiences in the US and abroad.
Rotate through each letter of our name above to learn about the foundation of our work.
Sites where civil rights histories are made manifest include iconic places of struggle and resistance– Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, Memphis’ Lorraine Motel, Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church – as well as everyday landscapes, laws, and traditions that represent legacies of discrimination. The “sites” of civil rights heritage include a wide spectrum of places and buildings as well as the people and ideas that brought them to be.
CPCRS undertakes research, teaching, and fieldwork to explore issues and solutions related to amplifying civil rights histories and protecting Black heritage sites.
Through this, we work in partnership with other organizations and institutions, focus on everyday spaces and iconic sites, and build upon existing traditions in order to honor existing community efforts.
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