African American/Black Historic Context Statement to Receive Recognition Award

The Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation will recognize and celebrate the African American/Black Historic Context Statement with a Certificate of Appreciation at their Annual Meeting and Community Awards Ceremony on Saturday January 21, 2023.  This valuable contribution to historic preservation was the result of a unique collaboration of social justice leaders, at Healing Justice Santa Barbara, and historic preservation specialists at the consulting firm of Page & Turnbull and the City’s Architectural Historian. The team compiled Santa Barbara’s African American/Black history, one overlooked for decades. The historic context statement examines the history of Santa Barbara’s African American and Black community through historic buildings. It identifies buildings and sites important to the community that can now be designated and protected as historic resources. The document highlights the many contributions of African American and Black people in Santa Barbara, beginning in the Spanish and Mexican periods through the postwar fight for civil rights. 

The effort has uncovered and elevated long-forgotten places, like the Midcentury Modern medical office building developed by Dr. Horace McMillian, a community leader and one of the first Black physicians in Santa Barbara and the special 1923 photograph of Dr. Frances Ford who was one of the rare, Black, woman doctors in Santa Barbara and in all of the United States.