William Sidney Pittman (April 21, 1875 – March 14, 1958) was an American architect who designed several notable buildings, such as the Zion Baptist Church and the nearby Deanwood Chess House in the

Deanwood Deanwood is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., bounded by Eastern Avenue to the northeast, Kenilworth Avenue to the northwest, Division Avenue to the southeast, and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue to the south. One of Northeast's o ...

neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He was the son-in-law of

Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite#United S ...

Biography

Pittman was born April 21, 1875, in Montgomery, Alabama to an ex-slave laundress and a prominent white man of the city."W. Sidney and Portia Washington Pittman House, Prince George's County, Historic Site Summary Sheet: Section 8: Significance.
/ref> At the age of 17 Pittman attended

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU; formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute) is a Private university, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was f ...

, where he completed programs in woodwork and architectural-mechanical drawing in 1897. He was awarded a scholarship to attend the all-white

Drexel Institute Drexel University is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony Joseph Drexel, Anthony J. Drexel, a financier ...

in Philadelphia,Carolyn Perritt, "The Dissident Voice of William Sidney Pittman", ''Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas'', Volume 16, Number 01, Spring, 2004.
Portal to Texas History. where he completed the five-year architecture and mechanical drawing program in only three years, graduating in 1900, after which he returned to Tuskegee to teach for the next five years. Pittman designed buildings for the Tuskegee Institute, including Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building (1900–05). He then moved to Washington, D.C., and developed his own successful architectural practice, receiving many important commissions. He developed the Fairmount Heights housing development for blacks in the suburbs of Maryland. In 1907, he married Portia Washington, daughter of

, and the family home that Pittman designed in Fairmount Heights is a notable landmark. Pittman won a federal commission for the Negro Building at the Tercentennial Exposition at Jamestown, Virginia in 1907. He designed the

Colored Carnegie Library of Houston The W. L. D. Johnson Neighborhood Library is a Houston Public Library branch in Houston, Texas. It replaced the Carnegie Colored Library, a Carnegie Library established by Houston's African American community in the Fourth Ward that was demolish ...

, built in 1913 as the only library available to African Americans of that city. Pittman moved to Texas in 1913 to escape the influence of his famous father-in-law. Once in Texas, Pittman built the Pythian Temple (1915–16) and the St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church (1920) in Dallas, the Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Fort Worth (1914); the Joshua Chapel A.M.E. Church in (

Waxahachie Waxahachie ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Ellis County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,140 in 2020. The city was founded in 1850, and incorporated in 1871. Much of the employment is provided by a number of industries and by ...

1917) and the Wesley Chapel A.M.E. in Houston (1926). In 1928, after raising three children, Pittman and his wife (Portia Washington Pittman), daughter of well known black intellect Booker T Washington, separated. She returned to teach in Tuskegee. He quit the practice of architecture, working as a skilled carpenter. For most of the next two decades, he published an opinionated and controversial weekly paper titled ''The Brotherhood Eyes'', a dissident voice in the African-American community that was an alternative to mainstream newspapers such as the '' Dallas Weekly'' or the ''

Dallas Express The ''Dallas Express'' was a weekly newspaper published in Dallas from 1892 to 1970. It covered news of African Americans in Dallas and a large portion of Texas. It called itself "The South's Oldest and Largest Negro Newspaper". It was a member ...

''. In the paper, he attacked what he saw as failures among the local preachers and other black leaders, gaining himself many enemies. Pittman died March 14, 1958, in Dallas, where he is buried in Glen Oaks Cemetery.

Works

*Pythian Temple in Dallas Texashttps://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/civil-rights/crisis/0900-crisis-v12n05-w071.pdf page 246 File:Allen Chapel AME Church.jpg, Allen Chapel AME Church, Fort Worth File:Kn pyth dallas2.png,

Knights of Pythias The Knights of Pythias is a Fraternal and service organizations, fraternal organization and secret society founded in Washington, D.C., on . The Knights of Pythias was the first fraternal organization to receive a charter under an Act of Co ...

Temple, Elm Street, Dallas, Texas File:Wesley AME portico.jpg, Portico of the Wesley Chapel AME Church in Houston

References

External links

* .
Carolyn Perritt, "The Dissident Voice of William Sidney Pittman", ''Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas'', Volume 16, Number 01, Spring, 2004.
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pittman, William Sidney 1876 births 1958 deaths Tuskegee University alumni Drexel University alumni African-American architects 20th-century American architects People from Montgomery, Alabama African-American journalists Journalists from Alabama 20th-century African-American people 21st-century American architects Architects from Alabama

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links