Wilmington's Robert Taylor Housing-- Part 2: Robert Robinson Taylor

From Wikipedia.

Robert Robinson Taylor (1868-1942) was the first accredited black architect in the United States. He was born June 8, 1868, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the first black in 1888.

As an architect, he designed most of the pre-1932 buildings at Alabama's Tuskegee University and was the second in charge of the institution behind its founder Booker T. Washington. The two men modeled Tuskegee on MIT.

The 241 units of the New Brooklyn Houses, built in Wilmington in 1938 for blacks, were renamed for him, probably after his death in 1942.

Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes were named after his son, Robert Rachon Taylor (1899-1957) who, like his father, was an architect, and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Champaign and early housing activist in Chicago.

His great granddaughter Valerie Jarrett is a senior advisor to President Obama. Dr. Taylor is buried along with his wife, Nellie Chesnutt Taylor at Wilmington, NC's Pine Forest Cemetery.

A Very Important Family. --DaCoot