LEXINGTON, N.C. — Lexington has been selected to receive a $26,000 grant to help put its first African American neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places.

Kassaundra Lockhart looks over old family photos on the porch of her grandparents’ home. It’s something she does often as she tries to collect as many historical artifacts as possible for her neighborhood, Lincoln Park.

“It feels like something I’m supposed to do, is something we should do to protect their legacy, to protect the history of Lincoln Park,” Lockhart said.

She’s taking the lead in putting her neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places, an idea that came from a long-time resident.

“It’s rewarding, it’s refreshing to be able to do something like this,” Lockhart said. “It doesn’t feel like we started the process in December of ‘21, but it doesn’t feel like it was a lot of work.”

She wants people to understand how important this neighborhood and its history are.

“It’ll be 70 years since (her grandparents’) house has been built this year. You know, the significance was back in 1954, in the 1950s, was this was the first neighborhood that was platted just for Black residents in Lexington,” she said.

This neighborhood was a place where everyone was family and looked out for one another.

“It was just a place where everybody, whether you lived here, whether your grandparent lived here, your aunt, uncles, cousins, when you came into the neighborhood, you felt safe. You knew you were protected,” she said. “You know, they were men here, were veterans. They were entrepreneurs. They were very much family men. And they looked after one another.”

It was once a cow pasture and the land was owned by a white man who wanted to turn it into a Black neighborhood.

“There was a gentleman by the name of Joe White, who apparently owned a lot of land in Lexington, specifically platted this neighborhood for Black residents and received a lot of pushback from that. People were not happy that he was like giving his land to Black residents.”

And he had to get help selling the land to the African American residents.

“He had some people who were going to build houses here, go around to different residents around town, and just tell them about what was going on. And so they were the ones that sold the land for him,” Lockhart said.

More than 60 plots were created for homes, and today 46 are still standing. Lockhart says it’s rewarding to be able to share this story.

“Really amazing,” she said. “And it’s a blessing because I feel like it’s a testament to what my grandparents and their friends established back in the 50s. Of community, neighborhood, family, integrity, honesty, hard work.”

“Like, you know, this is just the fruit of their labor and answers to prayers that I know they had back in those days as well,” she said

The $26,000 award from the National Park Service Underrepresented Communities Grant Program will help cover a consultant to prepare the nomination for the neighborhood. The consultant will do surveys, take pictures, talk with people living in the area and gather photos.