The Lawnside Historical Society has received a $34,000 grant as part of $6 million in federal funding distributed to 30 institutions nationwide. The society will use the money to organize, digitize and preserve an extensive catalog of artifacts from what historians say is the first independent self-governing, African-American community north of the Mason-Dixon Line. “We’re trying to make this come alive,” Linda Shockley of Lawnside Historical Society told NJ Advance Media. The project is a partnership between the historical society and 1838 Black Metropolis, a public history nonprofit named fo…