Charles I. Cassell, a distinguished architect who helped shape the campus of the University of the District of Columbia and fierce advocate of Washington D.C. statehood, passed away on May 17th, the Washington Post reports. He was 96. According to his wife, Linda Wernick-Cassell, the cause of death was congestive heart failure.

Born on August 5, 1924, Cassell grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of one of the country’s most prominent Black architects, Albert I. Cassell, who was the head of Howard University’s architecture department and designed eleven buildings on the campus, along with many other academic communities across the United States. Albert I. Cassell’s Founders Library at Howard University was named a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2016.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Charles I. Cassell spent several years as an architect for the Navy Department, designing buildings at military installations. He was also trained as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II before earning a bachelor’s degree in architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1951. Cassell’s two sisters were the first Black female graduates of Cornell’s architecture school. His brother was a draftsman. 

Between 1976 and 1986, Cassell worked as the chief of facilities and planning for the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and was instrumental in having nine structures built on the school’s campus. Both him and his father shaped the physical layouts of the only two historically Black colleges and universities in D.C. 

Cassell served on D.C.’s School Board, served as a vice president of the D.C. Historic Preservation League, and founded the D.C. Council of Black Architects. In addition, Cassell was a civil rights activist in the 1960s and helped lead the D.C.-based Black United Front with Stokely Carmichael. In the early 1970s, Cassell, along with fellow school board member Julius Hobson Sr., helped form the D.C. Statehood Party. 

In later years, Cassell became a champion of historic preservation in Washington D.C. He chaired the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board, served on an advisory board for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and helped lead what is now the National Mall Coalition. 

Charles I. Cassell is survived by his wife, two daughters, Kathryn Chenault and Norma Barfield, a half sister, and four grandsons.