After Nails-Alford learned about the massacre in 2003, she started uncovering her family history. Her parents and grandparents had never talked about it, she said. She believes that their silence came from fear that discussing it could somehow conjure its recurrence—that those memories could be a trip wire to ignite racial terror once again. But Nails-Alford, as she put it, feels the need to “hold that history.” By 2018, she had dug up old deeds and titles; she’d heard about the National Register, and she thought she had what she needed to list her family’s land. She reached out to the Oklahoma Historical Society, but the process was cut short when they told her the property didn’t qualify: Although the land had been theirs for almost a century, if their original house was no longer there, it didn’t count—the lot itself wasn’t enough. Nails-Alford’s land was far from the only Black property that was ineligible.
In 1966, Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act to preserve historic and archaeological sites. That act empowered the National Park Service to approve sites nominated by state historical-preservation offices, according to two main requirements. The site must be “significant,” meaning that it contributes to larger history. And its historical elements must be robust in “integrity,” meaning that the structure or site can ably convey its own historic significance. Integrity has seven components—location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association—each of which needs to be demonstrated and judged by the National Park Service. “Historic-preservation consultants” are often brought in to survey sites, take photos, and compile applications—and a single missing component can ruin a successful nomination.
The process is cumbersome, but the potential benefits can be significant. The National Park Service also offers a 20 percent tax credit for the rehabilitation and upkeep of historic buildings. In fiscal year 2018 alone, the NPS approved 1,013 of these projects, worth a total of $6.9 billion. Those tax credits can be a huge economic boost for communities that succeed in landing on the National Register. In fact, the NPS estimates that from 1978 to 2018, investment in historic-rehabilitation projects created approximately 2.7 million jobs and more than $176 billion in GDP. In Oklahoma, the prospects for economic gain are even greater: The state has its own historic tax credits too, which double the benefit for developers working with areas designated as historic.
But the recognition process consistently favors the whiter, wealthier neighborhoods, which are more likely to have been left intact. Brent Leggs, the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, told me that of the approximately 100,000 entries listed on the National Register, only about 10 percent were chosen because they reflect “underrepresented social and ethnic communities.” And only about 2 percent were chosen because they reflect Black identity. Other places around the country that might reflect Black life in America—such as slave quarters, historic meeting places for Black families, and schools that once served Black children—have not usually garnered the attention of the preservation community. And when they have, their significance and physical integrity has often become compromised by years of degradation and development. “Preserved places,” according to Leggs, are usually associated with “a privileged few … mainly white plantation owners, white presidents, white businessmen and industrialists.”