SEDALIA— A grant will allow the restoration of a historic structure at the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum. The National Park Service awarded the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources a $481,150 grant to preserve the museum’s historic Tea House, according to a news release.

The Tea House is part of a museum in Sedalia that honors the legacy of civil rights activist Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown—the first state historic site to interpret only African American history, and the only site to honor a woman’s accomplishments.

Scholars say Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown was a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights movement, specifically in North Carolina. Brown was born the granddaughter of a slave, but she was one of few African Americans to be educated in Cambridge. She became an educator, and after the American Missionary School closed, she fought to build a new school based on her own New England education. In 1902, 18-year-old Dr. Brown founded the Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Institute, which graduated over 1,000 African American youth before closing in 1971.

In the 1980s, the Palmer Memorial Institute was recognized as a historic site honoring Charlotte Hawkins Brown. The Institute became a nationally-recognized historic site in 1987, and today visitors can still witness Dr. Brown’s impact through 14 former school buildings.

The Tea House, specifically, was the training grounds for entrepreneurial education. The space gave campus “canteen boys” practical training in business management, which was significant in the midst of a segregated state.

According to North Carolina’s Division of State Historic Sites and Properties Director Michelle Lanier, the grant will help “preserve a treasure and touchstone of Civil Rights Era history, and inspire future generations through the legacy of Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown.”