Since President Trump returned to office, some of the nation’s best-known historic sites, from the White House’s ill-fated East Wing to the imperiled Kennedy Center, have come under attack, prompting preservationists to sue. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, has been a central player in these prominent cases, finding itself on the front lines of an escalating battle over the physical embodiment of American history and architecture.
Preservationists are gearing up for a prolonged legal fight to safeguard not only the landmarks themselves but the foundational protections of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), passed in 1966. The law was a response to the wave of urban renewal in the 1950s and ’60s, including the controversial razing of New York City’s Penn Station, that wiped out historic buildings across the country and galvanized a national movement for architectural conservation. The National Trust’s president and CEO, Brent Leggs, calls today’s threats, which recall those of the past, “generational and existential.”
These modern challenges come alongside proposed changes to the NHPA’s Section 106, a vital regulatory provision that requires federal agencies to consider how the projects they undertake, license, or fund could affect historic places and, critically, to give the public a chance to weigh in before a final decision is made. Any weakening of this section, preservation advocates warn, could strip communities of their voice in federal development decisions and open the door to sweeping alterations of treasured public spaces without adequate environmental or historical review.
In late September, at the 2026 National Preservation Summit, Leggs announced the creation of the Historic Preservation Defense Fund, a major campaign designed to raise $10 million over the next three years. The initiative is intended to support the National Trust’s legal defense capabilities, public advocacy campaigns, and grassroots community action “where and when historic places are threatened,” as he explains to Fast Company.
These core objectives fall squarely in line with the National Trust’s long-standing mission. Congress chartered the organization in 1949 to give the public a meaningful say in decisions about the nation’s most important historic places, establishing it as a quasi-public guardian of the American built environment. Over the decades, the organization has intervened in numerous high-stakes battles to protect cultural resources, but leaders note that the current convergence of federal policy shifts and targeted attacks on landmark sites represents a uniquely severe challenge to the nation’s heritage infrastructure.
In the weeks since the announcement of the defense fund, the trust has already made headway with an anonymous $1 million donation. The contribution is structured as a one-to-one matching gift, a mechanism that Leggs is optimistic will successfully attract subsequent gifts ranging from $25,000 to $100,000 from dedicated philanthropists and supporters of historic preservation. The broad scope of the campaign, he says, means that the raised capital will fund efforts nationwide, with resources being prioritized strictly by urgency.
The influx of capital will be crucial as the organization navigates multiple fronts in the legal arena. According to leadership, the funding will allow the National Trust to work alongside both new and existing advocacy partners to mitigate threats impacting national historic landmarks right in the nation’s capital, where political shifts frequently translate into immediate physical alterations of federal property. At the same time, the resources will be deployed to respond to localized threats that are impacting communities large and small across the country, ensuring that grassroots preservationists have the legal and financial backing necessary to defend their regional heritage against institutional overreach or unmitigated development.
