The Award Will Be Used to Advance Its Africatown Blueprint Initiative
(Mobile, AL January 29, 2024) —M.O.V.E. Gulf Coast Community Development Corporation is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a $25,000 Design Grant that will support the continuing efforts of its Africatown Blueprint Initiative. Specifically, it will be used to host a design summit this fall in Mobile to advance community-building strategies — first introduced through The Africatown International Design Idea Competition — to be from Africatown to other under-served communities across the country, even around the world.
In total, the NEA will award 958 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $27.1 million as part of its first round of fiscal year 2024 grants. (See the national announcement at NEA’s news site)
“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to M.O.V.E. Gulf Coast CDC, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “We are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.” (See list of awardees HERE.)
Highlighting design ideas from the Competition will be a central component of the proposed design summit this fall. It will convene preservationists, artists, designers, planners and community activists across the country who are embattled in their own struggles to preserve their historic communities, towns and districts.
“We are thrilled to have the NEA’s support as we seek to share best design practices from the Africatown Competition and forge new relationships, to learn from each other and arm ourselves with knowledge in the fight for spatial justice and sustainable futures for our under-served communities,” said Vickii Howell, President/CEO of M.O.V.E. Gulf Coast CDC.
The spectacular 2018/19 discovery of Clotilda — the last known slave ship to America and the only one ever found intact — provided the “critical mass necessary to harness the resulting global attention on Africatown. The historic but under-served community was founded after the Civil War by a remnant of the 110 enslaved Africans whom the Clotilda’s owners illegally shipped to Mobile in 1860.
M.O.V.E., with the professional consultancy of Birmingham-based civic design firm studio|rotan, developed the multi-site design competition as the tool of choice to strategically synthesize past and present community revitalization plans into one dynamic vision. The Competition solicited a range of Afro-centric design ideas from architects around the world that would bring to life the vision for Africatown.
“Design became our weapon of choice, skillfully wielded so that Africatown can realize its vision for a cooperatively-managed tourism system, which has the potential to generate billions of economic impact dollars that can aid Africatown’s transformation into both a global cultural heritage tourism destination and an equitably regenerated community,” Howell said.
In June 2023, M.O.V.E. CDC and studio|rotan convened a jury panel of highly experienced, A-list African American architects and planners — with Africatown leaders, Clotilda Descendants, and community advocates — that anonymously reviewed 169 design boards and 142 pages of essays in 23 submissions to the Competition’s website. M.O.V.E. awarded the winning designers cash prizes totaling $100,000 during a Juneteenth (June 19th) 2023 awards ceremony.
To receive future updates on the Fall summit, “REGENERATION: Reviving Under-Served Communities BY DESIGN,” please visit MOVE Gulf Coast CDC’s website page Design Summit 2024.