Speaker Priscilla Hancock Cooper Highlights Preservation of Civil Rights Sites

Otis Pratt Pearsall receives the Archive Project’s 2019 Preservation Award at the Bard Breakfast, with NYPAP Chair Anthony C. Wood (middle) and Board Member Richard Moylan of Green-Wood Cemetery (right)

A record crowd gathered in December of 2019 at the Yale Club for the 17th Annual Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit. Legendary Brooklyn Heights preservationist Otis Pratt Pearsall, accompanied by his wife Nancy Pearsall, was honored with the Archive Project’s Preservation Award. Importantly, Pearsall, who was introduced by Richard Moylan of Green-Wood Cemetery, was honored for his tireless efforts to create, maintain, and use meticulous archives of his preservation activities. Attendees were also moved by the words of speaker Priscilla Hancock Cooper of the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium. Brent Leggs of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund introduced Cooper, and she highlighted efforts to preserve sites associated with the U.S. civil rights movement. Lead sponsors for the event included The J.M. Kaplan Fund and Green-Wood Cemetery.

Video of the full Bard Breakfast is available online at the Archive Project’s YouTube channel:

Professor Andrew Dolkart (foreground) and a host of preservationists rise to honor Otis Pratt Pearsall for his long service as a steward of the records that constitute preservation history. | Courtesy of John Keon

Priscilla Hancock Cooper addresses two hundred guests at the Yale Club during the 2019 Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit as Brent Leggs looks on. | Courtesy of John Keon