Last year, the SCA partnered with the National Park Service to tackle back-logged historic preservation projects funded by the Great American Outdoors Act at sites throughout the eastern United States, including Darrah Hall at Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in South Carolina.
Our Maintenance Action Team rehabilitated the exterior of Darrah Hall, including replacing rotten siding, scraping and painting windows, rafters, siding, and the front porch, installing cedar shingles and repairing shutters.
Helping rehabilitate Darrah Hall was SCA alum Ayanna “Ace” Moore who served on the SCA’s Women’s Historic Preservation Crew from November 2022 to June 2023. The site is in the Reconstruction Era Park at Penn Center, a staple location of black American educational history.
“I am proud of the work the team and I were able to accomplish in such a short period of time,” she said.
Darrah Hall is the oldest building on the campus of the Penn Center on St. Helena Island and is one of the first schools for former slaves in South Carolina.
During the 1960s, Penn Center hosted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) staff as they planned the March on Washington and the Poor People’s Campaign.
One of Moore’s favorite memories of working with the SCA, was being part of the Women’s Historic Preservation Crew. Through the SCA’s partnership with the National Park Service, the women’s crew learned the fundamentals of being conservers of history.
Darrah Hall is the oldest building on the campus of the Penn Center at Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Saint Helena Island, South Carolina.
“I have been fortunate to facilitate most of my construction and carpentry experiences with mostly women. It’s inspiring to know that in the male-dominated field, women are breaking through,” Moore said.
Through her SCA experience, Moore had the opportunity to explore history as a profession, finding a niche in preserving historic sites and structures like those in Reconstruction Era National Park.
Today, Moore is a park ranger intern for the National Park Service in Maryland and D.C., where she continues to find herself face-to-face with many historical relics, including the Frederick Douglass house and Mary McLeod Bethune house, the first headquarters of The National Council of Negro Women.
In February, she authored “My Journey: The Life and Times of Dr. Emily Moore, Civil Rights Activist, Physical Educator, Philanthropist, and Tennis Hall of Famer,” who, among other accomplishments, broke through racial barriers by teaching minority students the game of tennis to help secure college scholarships.
“I am grateful for the experience and people I was able to meet through SCA,” Moore said. “[We] are off doing wonderful things in the realm of preservation and archeology.”
Since 1957, the SCA has offered young people from all walks of life the opportunity to learn and grow through hands-on environmental conservation programs. You can help continue this legacy with a donation to the SCA today.
