We Built This: Profiles of Black Architects and Builders in North Carolina

This traveling exhibit, presented by Preservation North Carolina, highlights the stories of those who constructed and designed many of North Carolina’s most treasured historic sites. Spanning more than three centuries, We Built This provides more than two dozen personal profiles and historic context on key topics including slavery and Reconstruction; the founding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Black churches; Jim Crow and segregation; and the rise of Black politicians and professionals.

Experience this extraordinary exhibit, which includes profiles of:

• Gaston Alonzo Edwards (1875–1943), the first Black architect licensed in North Carolina. He worked at Shaw University, where he planned and superintended construction of key buildings such as Leonard Medical School Hospital (1910), now Tyler Hall, using students in the construction.
• Stewart Ellison (1834–1899), an enslaved carpenter hired out in Raleigh, where he helped construct the North Carolina Hospital for the Insane (now Dorothea Dix Hospital). He became one of the state’s longest serving Black legislators of the 19th century, representing Wake County in five legislative sessions. He was also the first Black citizen to serve on what is now the Raleigh City Council.
• William B. Gould (1837–1923), an enslaved plasterer in Wilmington who made his mark on the elaborate plasterwork at the Bellamy Mansion. His initials, WBG, were found on the back of decorative plaster pieces during the 1993 restoration of the mansion.

The traveling exhibition includes banners and backdrops featuring individuals from northeastern North Carolina such as Joe Welcome, “an enslaved, multi-skilled builder [who] led crews of enslaved artisans and laborers in several building projects in Edenton and surrounding areas.” Also mentioned are Parker and Augustus Robbins, regional Rosenwald schools, Poplar Run A.M.E. Zion Church in Hertford, Somerset Plantation in Creswell, and Elizabeth City State University.

Graphic: Poplar Run A.M.E. Zion Church, built in the 1890s by Reverend H. B. Pettigrew. Courtesy Preservation North Carolina

For more information about We Built This at Museum of the Albemarle, please contact Wanda Lassiter at (252) 335-1453.