Cloey Callahan is reporting for the Times Union the city of Kingston has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Community Grant Program to complete the nomination of the Pine Street African Burial Ground to the National Register of Historic Places. Granting the burial ground National Register status would advance the effort to further document African American history in the city. “This grant will help Harambee and the Kingston Land Trust continue to educate about Kingston’s history and honor the memory of those interred at the Pine Street African Burial Ground,” said Kingston Mayor Steve Noble in a press release. The Underrepresented Community Grant Program has focused specifically on working to diversify the nominations submitted to the National Register of Historic Places. The grant funds will be used to engage a consultant to verify existing reports of the site. That person will conduct in-depth research, and aid in the search for an archeologist, said Kingston city planner Suzanne Cahill. Both steps will allow for a detailed bibliography of the burial ground to accompany the nomination. To gather everything needed for the nomination it could take up to a year. Community members have worked for 30 years to preserve the burial ground. Harambee Kingston New York, a nonprofit coalition that supports the local community through cultural programming, officially signed the deed to the Pine Street African Burial Ground in February. Read the full story in the Times Union.