Guidelines:
The New Jersey Historical Commission is particularly interested in ensuring that the Black Heritage Trail is reflective of the diversity of the Black experience in New Jersey. To that end, we will strongly encourage applications that focus on women, LGBTQI+ populations, geographic regions that contain significant Black history without any public commemoration, history relating to Black immigrant populations, and other historically underserved populations.
In the application, there is a question for nominators to self-report which themes and time periods are represented by their site. I’m also adding in the various types of institutions that we expect to be on the trail.
Themes
- Women/gender
- LGBTQIA+
- Geographic regions that contain significant Black history without any public commemoration
- Black immigrant populations
- Social movements (including workers’ rights, anti-racism, economics, housing, disability)
- Culture (including art, music, food, language, material culture/artifacts)
- Enslavement/abolition
- Electoral process, voting, legislation
Time Periods
- African arrival in the colonial era (1619-1775)
- Revolutionary War, gradual emancipation, and antebellum era (1776-1860)
- Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
- Jim Crow, World War I, Civil Rights Movement, and Black Power (1940-1980)
- Reaganomics, the fall of communism, and the rise of hip hop and the internet (1981-1999)
- The new millennium, post-racialism, Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and the present (2000-present)
Applicant Institution Types
- Museums
- Parks
- Historical societies
- Schools, colleges/universities
- Cemeteries
- Townships
- Churches
- Cultural centers
- Historic homes
- Athletic institutions
- Music venues