Placekeeping is defined as the active care and maintenance of a place and its social fabric by the people who live and work there. It is not just preserving buildings but keeping the cultural memories associated with a locale alive, while supporting the ability of local people to maintain their way of life as they choose.

Placekeeping initiatives that CPC has assisted with include the Florida Main Street Chitlin’ Circuit Historic Research and Documentation effort. CPC worked with historic African-American communities in Eatonville, Ft. Pierce, Jacksonville and St. Petersburg to identify Chitlin’ Circuit-related venues in designated Main Street program areas to highlight potential opportunities to further promote and revitalize these commercial districts around their historic sense of place and cultural heritage. Final deliverables included a promotional brochure and final report highlighting Chitlin’ Circuit history in each community.

Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park, a public park dedicated to the birth site of Jacksonville, FL’s James Weldon and John Rosamond Johnson brothers, is a tangible example of placekeeping. Working with the City and Hood Design Studio team during the conceptual planning phase, our cultural heritage and placekeeping services provided included extensive historical research, data collection, history presentations, and narrated walking tours of the proposed site and surrounding neighborhood of LaVilla. Additional CPC work has also included research for the historic interpretive signage included at the park.

Additional placekeeping efforts include working with Nassau County, FL to create a traveling historic exhibit for the County’s Bicentennial. CPC work included historic research, drafting the exhibit narratives, and assembling historic and current imagery. CPC teamed with Karen Essic Creative for the design of the exhibit.