TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - One Tallahassee resident was presented with an award by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Althemese Pemberton Barnes was given the organization’s highest national recognition, the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award.

A ceremony for the 2025 National Preservation Awards was held in Milwaukee. Barnes was there in person to accept the award.

Barnes received this honor for her decades-long work to protect and elevate African American heritage in Florida and the nation.

She founded the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network and the John Gilmore Riley Center and Museum, the first community-based African American historic museum in Tallahassee.

In a release from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the organization said Barnes’s

See Full Page