Black Preservation Stories

Black Preservation Stories uncovers the passion, challenges, and triumphs of the preservationists who safeguard Black history and communities for future generations. We amplify their voices and highlight projects that counter historical erasure and expand the preservation of Black heritage. We demystify the process behind every effort by examining how communities mobilize resources, sustain initiatives, and leverage preservation to strengthen identity, social cohesion, advocacy, and empowerment. Showcasing these grassroots movements, Black Preservation Stories both celebrates the resilience of Black communities and calls for systemic change to ensure equitable representation in America’s collective history.

Black Preservation Stories is a history podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 15 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Black Preservation Stories, a history show with 15 episodes published.

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  Episode #6

  (S2E6) Five Acres, Still Singing: The James Weldon Johnson Foundation

  May 6, 202657 minS2

  <p>What does it mean not only to preserve a historic home, but to sustain a tradition of Black creativity, reflection, and renewal?</p> <p>In Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Five Acres—the home and writing cabin of poet, diplomat, NAACP leader, and “National Hymn” author James Weldon Johnson—served as a retreat from the demands of public life. Johnson’s “National Hymn,” later widely known as “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and recognized today as the Black National Anthem, became one of the most enduring works in African American cultural and political history. Purchased in 1926, became a place where Johnson could write, rest...

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  Episode #11

  (S2E5) Stand Up for Ellen: The Robbins House and Black History at the Birthplace of the American Revolution

  Apr 20, 202658 minS0

  <p>How can historic sites draw on the Revolutionary War and the often-overlooked role of Black participants to create meaningful conversations about race and historical memory in the present?</p> <p>April 20, Massachusetts commemorates Patriot’s Day—marking the 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord that ignited the American Revolution. It also marks the seasonal reopening of the Robbins House Museum (@robbinshouse) in Concord, a site that challenges us to expand the story of American freedom.</p> <p>Built around 1800 for the children of Caesar Robbins—a formerly enslaved man who secured his freedom by fighting in the Revolution—the House is one o...

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  Episode #4

  (S2E4) Where Two or Three Gather: The AME Zion Church of Kingston

  Apr 1, 20261h 4mS2

  <p>What does it take to preserve a Black not only a historic site—but as a living architecture of belonging, refuge, and enduring Black presence?</p> <p>This episode centers on the A.M.E. Zion Church of Kingston, founded in 1848 and the oldest continuously active African American congregation in Ulster County, New York. Established in resistance to racial exclusion within white Methodist congregations, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church—often called the Freedom Church—emerged from a demand for dignity: the right to worship freely, to lead, and to build sacred space on Black terms. As one of the fi...

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  Episode #3

  (S2E3) Beyond Hospital Walls: Scott Ford Houses Inc. and Preserving Histories of Black Midwifery

  Mar 27, 202646 minS2

  <p>What has been lost with the erosion of Black community-based maternal care traditions? How might recovering the history of Black midwifery and cultural knowledge inform how we understand reproductive justice today?</p> <p>Scott Ford Houses, Inc. in Jackson, Mississippi—founded in 1995—preserves two 1890s homes in the Farish Street Historic District, built by formerly enslaved Mary Greene Scott and later inhabited by midwife Virginia Ford—one of the few remaining sites tied to Black midwifery in the state. Through the 1960s, Farish Street stood as the largest economically independent Black community in Mississippi, thriving as a vital center of com...

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  Episode #10

  (S2E2) Out of the Shadows: Althemese Barnes, the Riley House Museum, and FAAHPN

  Mar 10, 202658 minS0

  <p>BGHPN continues Season 2 with a special feature on preservationist Althemese Pemberton Barnes, whose work reshaped how Tallahassee, Florida, remembers its past. In 1987, through grassroots organizing and public advocacy, Barnes helped lead the restoration of Greenwood Cemetery, the city’s historic African American burial ground.</p> <p>That effort soon extended to another endangered landmark: the Riley House, built in 1890 as the home of educator and civic leader John Gilmore Riley. When the house faced demolition in the 1990s, Barnes helped mobilize community support to save it. In 1996, the home reopened as the John G. Riley Center & Museum (@johnrileycenter), preserving an...

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