Join us for Brent Leggs’ talk, “Reconstructing Identity,” on April 9.

Brent Leggs is the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund – a $25,000,000 fundraising and preservation campaign of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to fill an important gap in the nation’s cultural heritage landscape. A Harvard University Loeb Fellow, he co-authored the National Trust’s booklet, Preserving African American Historic Places, which is considered the “seminal publication on preserving African American historic sites” by the Smithsonian Institution.

As the project manager for several National Treasure campaigns across the country, he led efforts to create the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument in Alabama, which President Barack Obama designated in January 2017. Other campaign successes include the perpetual protection of icons like Villa Lewaro, the estate of Madam C. J. Walker in Irvington, New York; Joe Frazier’s Gym in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey; A. G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham; and more. Leggs is currently advising Historically Black Colleges and Universities at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, and Howard University in Washington, D.C., to ensure these campuses are preserved for future generations.

Currently, Leggs is also an assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation.

Free and open to the public

Information: Emily Jack, jack@email.unc.edu