Museum exhibit in Wake Forest celebrates black architects

An exhibit underway at the Wake Forest Historical Museum chronicles the history and achievements of the Black architects who designed and built an impressive number and variety of different structures throughout the state.

“We Built This: Profiles of Black Architects and Builders in North Carolina,” is curated by Preservation North Carolina, and will be viewable at the museum until July 26 when it will move to its next stop in Wilmington.

“This exhibit is a great way to celebrate the accomplishments of the architects who overcame so much to master their craft and construct so many buildings, churches and other monuments that still stand today,” Carolyn Rice, the museum’s Manager of Operations, said.

Included in the exhibit are artifacts from the stone wall that surrounds the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s campus in Wake Forest. A portion of the wall was constructed by two black janitors, Thomas “Doctor Tom” Jeffreys, and Len Crenshaw, who worked at what was then Wake Forest College.

The designers of Joyner Park in Wake Forest used the wall as inspiration when constructing a similar wall that surrounds the park.

One notable architect that the exhibit celebrates is John W. Winters Jr. Winters, of Raleigh, started his own residential development company in 1957 after realizing that there was opportunity in southeast Raleigh.

By 1960, he had started developing subdivisions, many of which were built to meet increasing demands for housing among the city’s Black community members.

He later ran for and won a seat on Raleigh’s City Council. He was the first Black resident elected to the council since Reconstruction.

Also included prominently in the exhibit is Phillip Freelon, an influential Black architect known for his public designs for institutions of Black culture.

A graduate of North Carolina State, Freelon designed the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Freelon and his firm designed almost every major museum or public space dedicated to African-American history in the country, from Charlotte to San Francisco.

The exhibit also includes an interactive portion geared toward kids that includes small, blocks meant to look like bricks that young visitors can use to deign and build their own structure.

The exhibit will culminate with an open house and celebration on Sunday, July 21. The open house will go from 1 – 4 p.m., and the celebration, for which advanced registration is requested, will run from 4 – 6.

All events are free and open to the public.

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