密歇根新闻广播 首位有许可证的黑人工程师

 

For architects, a groundbreaking ceremony is the beginning of a vision realized. But architect Donald White needed to break new ground in a much different way to get his career started.

In the early 1930s, White became the first African-American to earn a degree from the University of Michigan's School of Architecture. He went on to become the first licensed¹ black architect in the state.

On a clear, cold morning in January, we visited one of the buildings White designed in Detroit. Rightway Baptist Church is in the Core City neighborhood. Karen Burton met me there. She's the co-founder of Noir Design Parti, a group that celebrates the work of African-American architects in Detroit.

"If we look at architecture today, we know that there are fewer than 5% African-American licensed architects," says Burton. "For Donald White, back in the early 1930s, late 1920s ... even fewer. Certainly no one that he could really look up to to say, 'That's who I want to be like.'"

Finding commissions

The church is a brick building in a residential² neighborhood that's now dotted with vacant lots between the remaining homes. White designed it in the early 1950s, and it originally became the home to the Aijalon Baptist Church. Burton says chuches were a common project for African-American architects at the time.

"Black architects would have had to find someone to commission their projects, find someone who had the money to build," she says. "Churches certainly had a larger treasury³ than most people, so churches were the types of projects that black architects could get quite easily."

Burton believes the church was designed for a congregation that lived mainly in the neighborhood. The church is on a corner close to the street. There are crosses inlayed in the brick on either side of the entryway. The original windows have been filled in with cinder⁴ blocks and thick glass cubes.

"They probably were not there when Donald White designed this church," Burton says. "It may have been a stained glass window, which would be more traditional."

Burton says some city churches felt they had to replace windows for better security. The outside brickwork has been painted white, another feature that's unlikely to be part of White's original design.

Buildings fall to make way for "urban renewal⁵"

Many of White's buildings have been torn down over the years, a byproduct of so-called urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 60s.

"Paradise Valley area, Black Bottom area – where a lot of prominent African-Americans and a lot of black businesses were – those areas were torn down so that highway construction could be done, new neighborhoods could be built."

Burton says that cycle of tearing down and uprooting⁶ black neighborhoods made it difficult for African-American architects to find clients who were developing generational wealth and could afford to commission renovations or new buildings.

Paying it forward

"Donald White was very well known for helping⁷ other black architects start their careers," Burton said. "Not only did he do work here in Michigan and then in Alabama, where he was licensed, he also worked with his partner at the time, Frances Griffin for the United States government in Liberia."

And his work influenced another prominent black architect in Detroit: Nathan Johnson. He's possibly best known for designing the People Mover.

Like White, Burton is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Architecture and she's African-American. She didn't learn about White until years after she graduated, when an alumni magazine published an article about him following his death in 2002. Burton immediately recognaized him as a pioneer and is still doing more research on his life.

"I certainly look up to him now because I can understand the types of things that he probably went through as an architect."

1 licensed   

adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The new drug has not yet been licensed in the US. 这种新药尚未在美国获得许可。
• Is that gun licensed? 那支枪有持枪执照吗？

2 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

3 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

4 cinder   

n.余烬，矿渣

参考例句：

• The new technology for the preparation of superfine ferric oxide from pyrite cinder is studied.研究了用硫铁矿烧渣为原料，制取超细氧化铁红的新工艺。
• The cinder contains useful iron,down from producing sulphuric acid by contact process.接触法制硫酸的矿渣中含有铁矿。

5 renewal   

adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来

参考例句：

• Her contract is coming up for renewal in the autumn.她的合同秋天就应该续签了。
• Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。

6 uprooting   

n.倒根，挖除伐根v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的现在分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园

参考例句：

• He is hard at work uprooting wild grass in the field. 他正在田里辛苦地芟夷呢。 来自互联网
• A storm raged through the village, uprooting trees and flattening crops. 暴风雨袭击了村庄，拔起了树木，吹倒了庄稼。 来自互联网

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。