WEST COLUMBIA — Managing a preservation and renovation project like that of the Edgewood School is no easy feat.
Cindye Richburg-Cotton and her team at West Columbia’s Brookland-Lakeview Empowerment Center write and manage grants, review proposals for roofing and flooring contracts, coordinate with Clemson University to digitalize the school’s yearbooks and research the history of Greenwood County’s segregation-era “equalization school.”
And that’s just a fraction of the lengthy list of project responsibilities Cotton shared with The Post and Courier.
Restoration of Edgewood School is one of several projects the storied community center in Lexington County manages for other groups wishing to preserve Black history in South Carolina.
They could — and want to — do more, but they’re just one organization.
“We’re inundated with calls about people wanting, needing help,” Cotton said.
Enter the WeGOJA Foundation’s SC Preservation Toolkit, a free online resource that details the finer points of preserving Black history in the state, from finances to historical research to
The inspiration for the toolkit came out of the WeGOJA Foundation’s involvement in creating “The Green Book of South Carolina,” a guide to African American sites, attractions, history and Black-owned businesses in the Palmetto State that launched. It was inspired by the 1936 “Green Book,” which compiled places where African Americans would be safe in Jim Crow South.
While compiling the book, the preservation nonprofit’s executive director, Dawn Dawson-House, said they encountered many who abandoned projects to preserve Black cemeteries, churches and other sites.
“Most people are not professionals. … They’re not historians, they’re not archeologists, not architects,” she said. “So they were abandoning their projects as way too complex.”
The idea began as simply compiling a list of preservation experts — historians, contractors, architects, archaeologists, grant writers. But then, WeGOJA connected with the Mellon Foundation, a national foundation aimed at supporting the arts and humanities through grants, and the project expanded.
Over the course of two years, Dawson-House and her team — which included ambassadors for each county of the state — hosted listening sessions across the state to garner feedback for what needs existed in the realm of Black history preservation. Cotton served as Richland and Lexington counties’ ambassador, and said the sessions they held were “very well attended.”
The toolkit “soft launched” late last year, and Dawson-House said they’ve already been soliciting feedback on how to expand it. They hope to expand their database of historians-for-hire, for example.
“There are still lessons learned,” Dawson-House said. “The toolkit is a fluid resource. It will adapt and change as changes are made in real time.”
The WeGOJA Foundation is hosting an event Feb. 7 to celebrate the launch of the toolkit. Malika Pryor, chief learning and engagement officer for Charleston’s International African American Museum, will deliver the keynote address at West Columbia’s Brookland Banquet and Conference Center. Tickets for the 6 p.m. event are $75.
To access the toolkit, visit scpreservationtoolkit.com.
preservationists available to hire.
Cotton said she is already directing folks to the online resource.
“Usually people are calling and getting referrals and asking for, ‘Can you help me?’ ” Cotton explained. “So now we have something that’s structured. It’s very deliberate … user friendly.”
