Honor the Past: WSP's Partnerships to Safeguard Black History

The preservation of Black history requires the cooperation of many groups who can pool their resources, knowledge and perspectives to tell important stories with vibrant historical accuracy, and WSP is proud to help create spaces that celebrate Black history in the U.S.

For example, WSP partners with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) to carry out its mission to preserve the natural and cultural resources and values of the NPS for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations.

That effort includes planning for the future of numerous sites crucial to U.S. Black history, as WSP collaborates with the NPS and multiple community-based organizations to deliver historical projects.

In 2017, the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument was created by presidential proclamation to commemorate, preserve and interpret the struggle for human and civil rights that played out in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s.

The A.G. Gaston Motel was opened in 1954 by Arthur George (A.G.) Gaston, a successful Black businessman whose enterprises addressed the needs of segregated communities. It was recognized as Birmingham’s highest quality accommodation that accepted Black guests and served as the headquarters for a civil rights campaign in the spring of 1963.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Ralph David Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights were among the movement’s leadership that used the A.G Gaston Motel as the headquarters to implement their strategy of direct confrontation, or Project C, and their protest marches in the streets to desegregate the city of Birmingham. They staged marches, held press conferences and successfully focused the world’s attention on racial injustice in Alabama.

Today the two-story motel is co-owned by the NPS and the city of Birmingham, and the national monument space extends beyond the motel into the 36-acre Birmingham Civil Rights District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. This district encompasses partner sites such as 16th Street Baptist Church and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

WSP helped develop the general management plan (GMP) and environmental assessment for the A.G. Gaston Motel, which fully opened to the public for visitation in 2024. The GMP sets the vision for the NPS-owned portions of the motel and national monument. Plans for the motel include conversion of former rooms into administration space on the first floor and providing interpretation of the site on the second floor, such as the restoration of the “War Room,” where civil rights leaders met in the spring of 1963 to plan their campaign.

These improvements complement other amenities, including a museum dedicated to A.G Gaston that is located on the city-owned side of the motel, currently operating and open to the public.

“For this project, we brought together different partnerships and conducted interviews with numerous stakeholders to bring their input into the planning process,” said Lori Fox, senior vice president, federal compliance lead and project manager at WSP. “The public meetings were particularly impactful, as we heard firsthand from residents who had personal connections to the motel. Their stories fueled our passion and commitment to this project.”

Another NPS park unit that was added in 2017 by presidential proclamation was the nation’s monument to the “Freedom Riders,” the brave interracial group who took public buses from Washington D.C. to New Orleans during the 1961 “Freedom Rides.”

Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, the Rides tested whether the bus stations along these deep-south routes were complying with U.S. Supreme Court decisions that had nullified Virginia laws established to enforce segregation in interstate travel. On May 14, 1961, one of the buses was confronted at the Greyhound station in Anniston, Alabama. As it left the station the bus broke down approximately six miles west of the bus station on the site of Highway 202, where the mob continued to attack the bus and set it on fire.

Two sites — the bus station where the attacks began, and the Highway 202 site where the Greyhound bus broke down and was set on fire — comprise the Freedom Riders National Monument. WSP is currently developing a site master plan for the bus burning site, which includes draft concepts for how the event will be commemorated and interpreted.

Key stakeholders, including descendants of the Freedom Riders, informed the master plan. WSP memorial designers developed preliminary design concepts, which were presented to the public in Fall 2024. The concepts aim to enhance the visitor experience by connecting the two sites, creating pathways and facilities that are accessible for all visitors and providing interpretation to honor the riders.

Currently, public input is being incorporated into the planning process, and WSP is developing the environmental assessment.

“The bus burning site is four irregular shaped parcels of land next to a highway, so it’s a challenging space to organize for visitors,” said Ron Huffman, vice president of architecture and project designer at WSP. “But we were able to work collaboratively and engage with project stakeholders to develop a range of concepts for memorializing this chapter in American history.”

Another cross-discipline historical project is the reconstruction of Fort Mose at the historic state park in St. Augustine, Florida.

Officially known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, Fort Mose was the first legally sanctioned free Black community within the present boundaries of the United States. Originally established in 1738 and reestablished in 1752 by the Spanish governors of Florida, Fort Mose was a free Black military and residential community that protected the northern approach to Spanish St. Augustine. Its inhabitants consisted primarily of runaway Black slaves from the British colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, who escaped to freedom in Spanish Florida.

The site was acquired by the state of Florida in 1989 and added to the National Register of Historic Places five years later. The 40-acre Fort Mose Historic State Park offers a museum, visitor center and other amenities.

The project is a joint effort between the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Fort Mose Historical Society and Florida State Parks Foundation, among other stakeholders. Construction is expected to be completed this spring.

WSP is providing services for site-civil design, structural engineering, architectural design, landscape architectural services and electrical designs; as well as performing environmental surveys, topographical survey, permitting services through multiple agencies, and construction phase services including construction oversight.

“From a permitting standpoint, it was a challenge to design and build the reconstructed fort in a way that meets current building, hurricane and fire codes, but still looks like it did in the 1700s,” said Tiffany Davies, PE, vice president and project manager at WSP.

The architect and contractor worked closely with subcontractors to produce concrete formwork that was fashioned to look like wood grain. This makes the recreated, up-to-code Fort Mose appear as an entirely wooden structure, just like the original.

“There have been historians working on this project for more than a decade, and they had insights on how certain aspects should look,” Davies said. “With the concrete formwork, for example, we discussed what the wood grain should look like, whether it was originally constructed of longleaf pine, palmetto palm or other kinds of wood. It’s been a very in-depth and exciting process to make this reconstruction as historically accurate as possible.”

In addition to its work with NPS, WSP is proud to have served on other important projects dedicated to Black culture and historical education, including structural engineer for the renovation of the National Black Theater, the longest-running Black theater in New York City; part of the team that built The Hip Hop Museum (#THHM) in the Bronx, where hip hop began; and part of the team behind the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.