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 ol ...

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

Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...

Biography

Twelfth Street YMCA Building, 1816 Twelfth Street Northwest (Washington, District of Columbia)

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, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...

, 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 research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, S ...

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. Pittmann designed a number of buildings for the Tuskegee Institute, including Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building (1900–05). He then moved to Washington, DC, and developed his own successful architectural practice, receiving many important commissions. He developed the

Fairmount Heights Fairmount Heights is a town in Prince George's County, Maryland, Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Per the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 1,528. The town was formally incorporated in 1935, making the t ...

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 demolishe ...

, 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 the seat of government of Ellis County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,140 in 2020. Etymology Some sources state that the name means "cow" or "buffalo" in an unspecified Native American language. One possible ...

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 The ''Dallas Weekly'' is a newspaper headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the major Dallas-Fort Worth black newspapers. It was first published in 1954. From 1954 to 1985 the publisher was founder Tony Davis, from 1985 to 2018 James Washing ...

'' or the '' Dallas Express''. 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.

Gallery of works

File:Allen Chapel AME Church.jpg, Allen Chapel AME Church, Fort Worth File:Kn pyth dallas2.png, Knights of Pythias 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 American architects People from Montgomery, Alabama African-American journalists Journalists from Alabama 20th-century African-American people

Biography

Gallery of works

References

Further reading

External links