HISTORIC PRESERVATION:

Tom LEE HOUSE RESTORATION

I'm working in partnership Klondike Smokey City Community Development Corporation, Klondike CLT, and descendants of Tom Lee to restore his historic home into a cultural center. The center will honor Lee's legacy and the unsung heroes of Klondike, the first neighborhood within Memphis city limits designed for Black homeownership. Learn more about our broader effort to gather this history -- gathering oral histories, archiving in resident homes and community-centers, co-curating pop-up exhibits here.

Our work is supported by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation with funding from the Freedom Together Foundation.

Residents Engage with Tom Lee’s Archives and Share Their Visions

Learning from Tom Lee's Descendants

Descendant walking tour and visioning in the Tom Lee House

Digitizing Lee family archives

Descendants in the pop-up exhibit on Tom Lee

Photo of Tom Lee's descendants in front of and in the Lee's house by Reginald Johnson Sr., Tom Lee celebration photos by Tierany Guest and Margaret Haltom