OMAHA — A North Omaha landmark, built more than a century ago, is part of a national wave of religious buildings that will share $4 million awarded last week under a program to protect the legacy of America’s Black churches.

The former Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church, 3105 N. 24th St., is to benefit from a $100,000 planning grant aimed at helping to transform the vacant church with a distinctive dome and white columns into a community center.

Built in 1910, and now located in the heart of Omaha’s Black community, Calvin Memorial at one time had been celebrated as an integrated church.

It became an all-Black congregation as “redlining policies reinforced hysteria around racial integration in the mid-20th century,” said Tiffany Tolbert of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Action Fund, which announced the awards to 31 historic Black churches across the United States.

Tolbert, senior director for preservation, said Calvin Memorial’s struggle for racial equality and cultural importance to Omaha was immortalized in the 1966 award-winning documentary, “A Time for Burning.”

Built as North Presbyterian Church, the structure at the corner of 24th and Wirt Streets housed several different congregations over the years. In 1954, Calvin Memorial was led by the Rev. Charles Tyler, who led the congregation into the Civil Rights Movement, which included joining the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963.

Now owned by POC Collaborative LLC,  the former Calvin Memorial is vacant due to structural damage. A designated Omaha landmark that also is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the church is described as an example of the Neoclassical Revival Style, inspired by the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition.

Representatives of the Omaha Landmarks Heritage Preservation Commission say it is one of the most important structures in the Kountze Place neighborhood.

When renovated, Tolbert said, the church owners envision offering space for community organizations, for town hall meetings and events, for technology access and training and for a community kitchen.

Representatives of the action fund said that with more than $95 million in funding, the action fund is the largest U.S. resource dedicated to preserving historic African American places. Since launching the Preserving Black Churches grant program in 2022, the fund has provided nearly $10 million in grants to more than 80 historic churches.

Black churches stand as timeless bastions of faith, resilience and achievement in communities across America, the action fund said in a media release that coincided with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday week.

“We created the Preserving Black Churches program to ensure the historic Black church’s legacy is told and secured, said Brent Leggs, executive director of the action fund. “(So) that these cultural assets can continue to foster community resilience and drive meaningful change in our society.”

The latest round of grants ranged from $50,000 to $200,000.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., historian and adviser to the action fund, said that Black churches have been at the forefront of democratic reform since this nation’s founding. 

“They’re a living testament to the resilience of our ancestors in the face of unimaginably daunting challenges,” he said.

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