Designing churches opened doors for Donald While, Michigan's first black licensed architect

2020-02-26T16:56:00-05:00

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 licensed black architect in the state.

Michigan Radio's Doug Tribou met with Karen Burton, co-founder of Noir Design PArti, a group that celebrates the work of African American architects in Detroit, at Rightway Baptist Church. The church as designed by architect Donald White, who was Michigan's first licensed black architect.

"If we look at architecture today, we know that there are fewer than 5% African-American licensed architects," said Burton in the meeting. "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.'" This was a similar sentiment architecture student Demar Matthews expressed in his piece here on Archinect, the lack of black architects for him to look up to.

She goes on to explain how black architects at the time had to find someone to commission their projects and how churches tended to have the financial means to realize architectural work.

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Designing churches opened doors for Donald While, Michigan's first black licensed architect