Celebrating the Best in Preservation for 2024

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church has successfully restored its buildings and become a shining example of preservation, cultural revitalization, and social activism. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the church served as the organizational headquarters, site of mass meetings, and rallying point for Black Americans protesting widespread institutionalized racism in Birmingham, Alabama. The Ku Klux Klan bombing of the church in 1963 was followed by President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law.

Today, the church remains committed to serving the community, as well as the more than 100,000 tourists who visit annually to tour the redesigned educational spaces and multi-media museum experiences that focus not only on the bombing and its aftermath, but also on the aesthetic significance of the church’s design by Black architect W. A. Rayfield.

John H. Chafee Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Policy

The John H. Chafee Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Policy recognizes an individual or group of individuals who have done outstanding work in preservation advocacy.

Former U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy | Montpelier, Vermont