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Today’s Black History WOW!
Robert Robinson Taylor was born on June 8, 1868, in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father, Henry Taylor, worked as a carpenter and businessman, born into slavery but freed in 1847 by his father and owner Angus Taylor. His mother, Emily Still, was the daughter of freedmen even before the Civil War. He was the great-grandfather of Valerie Jarrett, an advisor to former President Barack Obama.
Taylor left home for MIT in 1888, where he studied architecture, becoming the first African American to enroll at that prestigious university. After graduating from M.I.T. in 1892, Taylor became the first accredited African American architect.
During his study at MIT, he talked in person with Booker T. Washington, who wanted Robinson to develop the industrial program at Tuskegee and to plan and direct the construction of new buildings for the campus.
Taylor's first building project on the Tuskegee University campus was the Science Hall (Thrasher Hall) completed in 1893. The new Science Hall was constructed entirely by students, using bricks made also by students under Taylor's supervision.
This first project exemplified the capabilities of African Americans in the building trades, and it underscored the larger potential of the manual training curricula being developed at Tuskegee.
Several other buildings followed, including the original Tuskegee Chapel, erected between 1895 and 1898, and The Oaks, built in 1899 as Tuskegee's presidential residence.
After a brilliant 40-year career as a professor and architect at Tuskegee, Robert Robinson Taylor collapsed in the very chapel he designed and built, and passed away on December 13, 1942, in the hospital he also designed and built.
Today In Black History
In 1790, Congress declared the city of Washington in the District of Columbia as the permanent capital of the United States.
In 1875, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Alabama A & M) was chartered in Normal, Alabama.
In 1894, Negro miners in Alabama were killed by striking white miners.
In 1977, Janelle "Penny" Commissiong of Trinidad and Tobago was crowned “Miss Universe,” the first Black woman in that position.
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