Foundations donate $1.5M to help restore historic Black church in Memphis gutted by arson

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Several foundations person donated $1.5 cardinal to assistance rebuild aft arson gutted a historical Black religion that played an important relation successful the civilian rights movement

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Several foundations person donated $1.5 cardinal to assistance rebuild aft arson gutted a historic Black church successful Memphis, Tennessee, that played an important role successful the civilian rights movement.

Clayborn Temple had been undergoing a yearslong renovation erstwhile idiosyncratic intentionally acceptable a fire wrong the religion successful the aboriginal hours of April 28, destroying astir everything but parts of the facade.

Before the fire, the Romanesque revival religion was successful the midst of a $25 cardinal restoration task that included restoring a 3,000-pipe expansive organ. The task besides sought to assistance revitalize the vicinity with a museum, taste programing and assemblage outreach.

Despite the extended damage, Anasa Troutman, enforcement manager of Historic Clayborn Temple, has said they program to proceed moving guardant with the restoration. Troutman announced the caller donations for that effort Wednesday. The wealth comes from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund on with the Mellon and Ford foundations.

Located conscionable southbound of the iconic Beale Street, Clayborn Temple was built successful 1892 arsenic the Second Presbyterian Church and primitively served an all-white congregation. In 1949, the gathering was sold to an African Methodist Episcopal congregation and fixed its existent name. In 1968, the religion served arsenic the office for a sanitation workers’ strike, which brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, wherever helium was assassinated.