Little-Known Black History Fact: Wallace Rayfield

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By: Erica Taylor, The Tom Joyner Morning Show

Born in 1872, Wallace Rayfield, the son of a Pullman porter in Macon, Georgia, was a legendary craftsman who was the second in the nation to be licensed and the first black architect in Alabama. He worked alongside Robert Taylor, the first licensed black architect in history, when the two of them taught at Tuskegee Institute under Booker T. Washington.

Rayfield’s name is relatively unknown in history books. Rayfield’s work as an architect consisted of designing the most significant buildings in civil rights history including 16th Street Baptist Church, Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Trinity Building in South Africa. CONTINUE....