{"id":2603,"date":"2020-05-24T22:47:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T22:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/katherinerw.com\/?p=2603"},"modified":"2020-05-24T22:47:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T22:47:29","slug":"publishing-blackarchbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/2020\/05\/24\/publishing-blackarchbook\/","title":{"rendered":"First publishing project complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last nine months, I had the honor of working with Melvin Mitchell, FAIA, to publish his latest book, African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities<\/a><\/strong>. The paperback sales started in February and this week we released the ebook and hardback.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was awesome to be called upon to do this because of my previous work editing the NOMA magazine. I did not know much going into the process but I spent many hours and months researching all the processes and procedures to get the publication not just out in book form, but cataloged and available to booksellers, as well as the start of a marketing campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Book Description<\/p>\n

Melvin Mitchell believes that the 2016 opening of the NMAAHC signals either a black architect renaissance or the demise of the black architect-practitioner corps in the U.S. by 2040 if not earlier\u2026along with the demise of Black America\u2019s cultural, political, and spatial beachheads in America\u2019s big cities. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

He argues in this book that America\u2019s perennial housing crisis – most acutely manifested in Black America\u2019s accelerating displacement from America\u2019s cities \u2013 must be countered by a new progressive 21st century movement that re-invents the revolutionary construction-based architecture modus operandi deployed 100 years ago by Booker T. Washington. Mitchell believes that Washington completed the build-out of the Tuskegee Institute campus as a counter to America\u2019s building of the \u201cWhite City\u201d aka the 1893 Chicago World\u2019s Fair-Columbian Exposition 600 miles to the north in Chicago, Illinois. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Mitchell argues that the centerpiece of a new \u201carchitecture\u201d must realign with the needs of Black America for major increases in home and business ownership and wealth creation. That requires a massive \u201cBuy the Block\u201d-type redevelopment in urban Black America. Today that must entail nothing short of the literal building of at least one million new affordable housing units in urban Black America by Black America between now and 2030. The means to accomplish such a moon shot are there in existing and emerging progressive legislation. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

The American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, the Green New Deal, and the Opportunity Zones Act must all be harnessed with the trillions of available public dollars, private equity funds, and black nouveau rich wealth to create and sustain an African American-dominated urban affordable housing industry. That may not be the answer but is most certainly one of several heretofore missing pieces.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you are interested in the survival of black architecture firms and the impact they can have on black communities by focusing not just on design but creating a stronger bridge to development and construction of these communities, then I encourage you to learn more on Instagram<\/a> and get the book<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last nine months, I had the honor of working with Melvin Mitchell, FAIA, to publish his latest book, African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16,21,22,23,80,95,116],"class_list":["post-2603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-african-american-architects","tag-african-american-architect","tag-architect","tag-architects","tag-architecture","tag-melvin-mitchell","tag-publications","tag-urban-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-matic.com\/archive\/katherinerw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}