William Sidney Pittman

Pittman's career had a long fall. After designing the Negro Building at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, the first federal contract given to an African American architect, he stopped practicing in 1928 and, the Handbook of Texas says, began a weekly paper, the Brotherhood Eyes, charging the Black middle class with hypocrisy for patronizing white businesses. A businessman brought legal action, and in 1937 Pittman was convicted of sending obscene matter through the mail and sentenced to five years in Leavenworth, released early on parole. He returned to Dallas in 1939. Architect Enslie Oglesby Jr. later donated his headstone.

What the plaque says

William Sidney Pittman Pioneer African American Architect William Sidney Pittman was born in Montgomery, Alabama on April 21, 1875. Pittman attended segregated public schools in Montgomery and Birmingham before enrolling at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1892 at the age of 17. In 1897, Pittman entered the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry and graduated in 1900 with a focus on architecture and mechanical drawing. For a short time, Pittman worked at the Tuskegee Institute and then moved to Washington, D.C. To open a private architectural practice. During this time, he designed numerous public buildings and gained recognition as one of the most accomplished black architects in America. In 1907, he married Portia Washington, daughter of Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and in 1913, they moved to Dallas where Pittman operated an office from their home. While in Dallas, Pittman designed many buildings, including the 1916 Pythian Temple, built to serve as the state headquarters for the black fraternal organization, the Knights of Pythias. The building was financed by the black citizens of Dallas and served as the social gathering place for the community. Pittman also designed St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dallas, Joshua Chapel A.M.E. Church in Waxahachie and Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Fort Worth, along with other buildings. Pittman designed dozens of buildings in the U.S., including 14 known works in Texas. He also published the newspaper Brotherhood Eyes. He died in 1958 and was buried at Glen Oaks (later Pinkston) Cemetery. Pittman is remembered as the first practicing African American architect in Texas and still serves as an inspiration to future generations. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 0.6 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 0.9 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 1.2 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 1.6 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

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