‘A far-reaching calamity…to lose Robert R. Taylor’ (Booker T. Washington)

“To Robert Curtis Ogden…Dear Mr. Ogden: Replying to yours of May 21 I would state that in order to be absolutely sure of retaining Mr. Taylor’s services, in my opinion I am sure we will have to add four or five hundred dollars to his present salary. The Oklahoma people are very insistent and very tempting in their offers. As I have told Mr. Peabody, I should consider it a far-reaching calamity for us to lose Mr. Taylor at Tuskegee. Yours very truly,”-Booker T. Washington, May 28, 1906

Robert R. Taylor arrived at Tuskegee Institute in 1892, and most agree that he was—near certainly—the first African American graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as the country’s first African American architect. In relatively short order, he replaced Booker T. Washington’s brother John H. Washington as the head of the building program and director of mechanical industries. (To appreciate the significance of this change for Mr. Washington and Tuskegee Institute’s future, Taylor’s expertise was so greatly valued that he replaced Washington’s elder brother—his own brother, Mr. John H. Washington.) This John H. Washington is not to be mistaken for his adopted brother James Washington who would also serve in important roles at Tuskegee.

Notwithstanding, in this 1906 letter of reply to his board member, Robert Ogden, regarding the unusual petition to grant his request to “add four or five hundred dollars” to the salary of an employee who was none other than Robert R. Taylor, Washington would make it emphatically clear: “I should consider it a far-reaching calamity for us to lose Mr. Taylor at Tuskegee.” To this request, Mr. Ogden, a supportive university board member interested in the institution’s success, replied in a subsequent letter: “You are authorized to add four hundred dollars to salary as suggested.”

To appreciate Mr. Taylor’s enormous contributions to Tuskegee Institute, consider the fact that he drew nearly all of the plans and specifications for Tuskegee Institute’s buildings and facilities on its campus including its first chapel. This also includes the Slater-Armstrong Memorial Trades Building which was the largest building on the Tuskegee Institute grounds at the time of its opening on January 10, 1900–9 years after the start of Mr. Washington’s presidency in 1881. What’s still more remarkable is that Mr. Taylor’ architectural work was for a campus which gradually increased to over 5000 acres owned making it not only the largest HBCU in terms of acreage owned, to date, by nearly 2500 acres. (Amongst all U.S. universities in the United States, this commentator has seen published reports ranking Tuskegee in acreage owned as high as 8th and as low as 20th.)

Beyond his visible contributions that serve as a testament to his legacy, Mr. Taylor served collaboratively and confidentially when called to participate on several internal university committees dedicated to both student and other important matters. (This eventual architectural giant was yet only a member of a committee to arrange the Tuskegee exhibit at the Atlanta Exposition where Mr. Washington delivered his now infamous address in 1895 which would be prior to George Washington Carver’s arrival in 1896.)

Rather remarkably, there is very little written correspondence from Mr. Taylor directly and personally (not as a committee representative) found in Mr. Washington’s papers and correspondence—except one where his opinion was requested. (It appears from what we know concerning Mr. Taylor that he was a man of deep and profound humility. One might easily imagine this was owing to his many long years of service working alongside Booker T. Washington whose lifelong work sought to inculcate one of his more understated aphorisms found in his writings: “Let examples answer.”

All the same, in the letter he was requested to provide, Mr. Taylor submits his recommendation that Robert R. Moton succeed Mr. Washington—joining many others the most notable of which was Mrs. Margaret Murray Washington—in believing that Mr. Moton not Mr.Emmett J. Scott, Washington’s modern day chief of staff or Mr. Warren Logan, Washington’s modern day chief financial officer should become Tuskegee’s second president. (To their credit, neither Logan or Scott openly expressed interest in the position though both possessed many supporters.)

Some 73 years after his passing, Robert Taylor would be formally recognized in a United States Postal Service unveiling ceremony on February 12, 2015. (He would be represented at the ceremony by his great granddaughter Valerie Jarrett, the then senior advisor to the President of the United States of America.) With it he became the third Tuskegee Institute faculty or staff member possessing a U.S. postage stamp in his honor along with Washington, the first among all African Americans, and George Washington Carver. (Alfred Anderson, representing the Tuskegee Airmen, would also receive this honor.) And while the person in back of most of the iconic buildings appearing on the campus was perhaps not as voiced as many of his Tuskegee contemporaries, especially Booker T. Washington, these buildings speak and continue to speak. And how ironic that this speech extends to Mr. Taylor’s passing. For he passed in the very chapel he created and designed upon his return visit to Tuskegee in 1942.