The Manifesto Off the Shelf: Educating Black Architects at Morgan State University

Abstract This study will look at the education of black architects in the undergraduate Architecture and Environmental Design Program (BSAED) at Morgan State University (MSU) relative to the vision of its founding director, Melvin Mitchell. Though retiring shortly after the start of the program in 2001, Mitchell left on the shelf his book The Crisis of the African-American Architect, which included a manifesto for educating black architects for the 21st century. Examining Mitchell's book provides for an evaluation of the current program and pedagogy, relative to Mitchell's vision of the future of black architecture and black architects. Notes 1. Melvin Mitchell, The Crisis of the African–American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power (New York: Writers Advantage, 2003), 222–23. 2. In 2004, 6.7% of law degrees and medical degrees were awarded to African Americans. See Victoria Kaplan, Structural Inequality: Black Architects in the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Amanda Kolson Hurley, “Seven is Enough,” Architect 102, no. 1 (January 2013): 118–119. 44. Mitchell, Crisis (note 1), 269.