Detroit wins preservation grant for Black women's clubhouse on Ferry Street

Jania Clowers  |  The Detroit NewsA landmark of Detroit civil rights history is getting a boost with a national $75,000 grant.The Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board has been selected as one of only eight projects nationwide to receive a $75,000 History of Equal Rights Grant by the National Park Services.The grant money will fund preservation efforts at the Detroit Association of Colored Women’s Club headquarters, now known as the Detroit Association of Women’s Club. The efforts will include a historic structures report for the building and to nominate the site to the National Register of Historic Places.Janese Chapman, director of the Historic Designation Advisory Board, said the clubhouse is significant to Black history in Detroit.The Detroit Association of Colored Women’s Clubs was established in 1921 by eight clubs of Black women who came together to address social and welfare issues in the city’s Black community.The club is “one of the oldest continuing Women’s clubs in Detroit,” Chapman said.In 1941, under the leadership of civil rights activist and club president Rosa Slade Gragg, the club bought a building at Ferry and Brush Streets that originally was constructed as a home for William Lennane in 1913. To produce her share of the
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