Yesterday philanthropist MacKenzie Scott alongside her husband Dan Jewett announced that she has awarded a grant of $20 million to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, according to trust’s press statement.
In the past three years the trust has raised over $25 million in support of African American historic sites, and “has worked to promote a national identity that reflects the nation’s true diversity.”
Scott’s latest donation brings her givings to more than $8.5 billion worth of donations in less than a year, according to CNN Business. It nearly doubles what the Action Fund has raised since its inception in November 2017.
“This generous contribution will be transformative for the Action Fund,” said Paul Edmondson, President and CEO of the National Trust. “These funds will be used to advance the Action Fund’s mission of protecting and telling the story of historic places that have been overlooked in American history, and that represent centuries of African American activism, achievement, and resilience.”
The Action Fund is the largest in American history dedicated to preserving African American landmarks.
In a blog post titled “Seeding by Ceding”, Scott outlined her desire to “de-emphasize privileged voices.”
“People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about change they are creating,” she writes. “Me, Dan, a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors — we are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change.”
