That's awesome. I think this school was on the annual National Trust list of 11 most endangered places - they have such a good record of actually helping things get usefully preserved.

A couple years ago I visited the Power of Children exhibit at the Indianpolis Children's Museum. They focused on the Ruby Bridges story but they had some terrific video interviews with various people about segregation - Linda Brown was one of them, and she made a big impression on me.

Ha, look who didn't check the first two links before commenting. ;-)

It is sort of funny. You have two buildings, but can you do the same thing with both? Apparently not. And yet you'd think this one was more significant. Maybe there were reasons to choose the other one, like location.

(And I think the Trust's Most Endangered list still has a demolition rate of more than 20%.)

I find it very fitting that a site once known for bigotry and hate will be reborn like this. Looking over that PDF they seem to do some impressive work.

(dhartung, I think the museum was located elsewhere since the school was still in operation until the 1990s)

$7 million is a lot of cash to rehab a building, and I doubt they will find many willing commercial lenders, if any. Relying on community donations in this economy is rather ambitious. I would say this building is still very much on the endangered list.

If Obama could ever get Congress to get some kind of Back to Work bill in place, this project would be a prime candidate.

I spent the morning looking for a donation page but couldn't find one. You're right, Adiril, it would be a fine WPA project!

Huh... strangely enough, or appropriately, that was how it got built the first time. Hooray for the New Deal!

Ha, look who didn't check the first two links before commenting. ;-)

No, I didn't - was at work and really didn't have time to get into reading articles. But I knew about the building, just was happy to see the story announced. For the past couple of years I've posted the "11 Most Endangered" as a MeFi FPP and remembered the school being on it.

(And I think the Trust's Most Endangered list still has a demolition rate of more than 20%.)

ACtually, for the "11 Most" program, it's much better than that - out of 220 sites named over the last 20 years, only seven have been destroyed. Which is a fantastic outcome (even 20% would have been fantastic), considering that in order to get on the list, destruction of the building has to be on the table. There are three decision criteria, one of which is "urgency" - In other words, planned demolition was prevented