The legacy of Wallace A. Rayfield, Black Architect

​Wallace Augustus Rayfield was born in 1873 in Macon, GA.  Educated at Howard University, Columbia University and the Pratt Institute, Department of Architecture in Brooklyn, NY, he was offered an instructor’s position at the internationally famous Tuskegee Normal, later Tuskegee Institute and now Tuskegee University.  This position was offered by Booker T. Washington personally. 

Rayfield, one of the very first university trained black architects in America established the school of architecture at Tuskegee and in 1907 began a private architecture practice in Birmingham, AL.  Rayfield designed and was involved in the construction of three church sanctuary buildings in the Old Town neighborhood of Decatur, two of which remain with active congregations. 

These are the   Kings Memorial United Methodist Church where the Rayfield sanctuary no longer remains but the church remains active, and the First Missionary Baptist Church and Wayman Chapel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, churches which still retain their Rayfield sanctuaries. 
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Perhaps Rayfield’s most famous building was/is the 16th Street Baptist Church, in Birmingham, Alabama, which was bombed during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s resulting in the deaths of four young girls who were attending Sunday School in the church.   This church has been rebuilt and still stands in Birmingham today.