User:Chengbatian/Amaza Lee Meredith

Early life and family

Meredith was born in Lynchburg, Virginia as a daughter of Samuel Peter Meredith and Emma Pink Kenney. She had three siblings, two sisters and a brother. Meredith maintained a lifelong good relationship with her older sister Maude. Samuel, Amaza's father, was a carpenter, and Emma, her mother, was a seamstress. Because her father was white and her mother was black, her parents where prohibited by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying in Virginia. In Amaza Lee Meredith's birth certificate, she is only identified as Emma Kenney's daughter. The name of the father is left out. Nevertheless, Samuel Meredith cared about his family and built them a house in which he moved in as well some years later. He also supported them financially. Eventually, her parents travelled to Washington, D.C. in racially separated railroad-cars to get married and finally moved in together afterwards. Not long after that, her father began to lose business as a result of the controversial marriage and was soon in debt. He committed suicide in 1915. Despite the difficult family-life in an interracial family, both parents had great influence on Meredith. Her father, a carpenter, taught her how to draw blueprints and built models. He instilled in her the wish to become an architect. Her mother, who worked as a seamstress before having her children, believed education was the key against racist public opinion. Amaza's mother was relatively highly educated herself. She was a convincing, engaged woman and she built a local network of support at Lynchburg's Eight Street Baptist church, which was a center for female political and social activities. She supported her children's education by sending them to college. It was there when Amaza Lee Meredith met her future companion, Dr. Edna Meade Colson, with whom she held correspondence during her entire vocational education and later moved in with in their shared home "Azurest South". Although it is not quite clear (and not very likely given the time they lived in) whether they lived as an openly homosexual couple, it is safe to say their relationship was committed and loving. Both Meredith and Colson were honorary members of the Gillfield Baptist Church. They lived together until Meredith died in 1984 and are buried alongside each other in Petersburg, Virginia, at Eastview Cemetery. All in all, Amaza Lee Meredith maintained a modern, self-sufficient lifestyle despite the social barriers that she had to overcome.

Other Achievements

Meredith was also an inventor. In 1955, she received a patent for an accessory to be attached to a golf bag. Also, she developed the "Kant Drop", a top that can be attached to any recyclable container. She continued to design buildings and paint throughout the 1960s. Some of her artwork was exhibited in Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and galleries in New York and North Carolina, some is still displayed in the Gillfield Baptist Church or hangs in residents’ homes. In the 1970s, Meredith designed logos to be used for a proposed name change for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Career in Architecture

Meredith was the first African American scholar to receive a land grant in Virginia. Meredith's commitment to her family, friends, and the advancement of Black cultural equity was a guiding thread throughout her career. Despite the fact that Amaza was never a registered architect, she was one of just a few black architects in practice at the time, and one of the country's few female black architects. (On the basis of the 1910 U.S. Census, only 59 black architects and 47 black draftsmen were employed.) The fact that most of Meredith's historical work has been lost, Virginia State University continues to honor her famous achievements. While her exact number of works is unknown, Amaza has been attributed with architectural design for houses in Virginia, Texas, and New York. The most prominent of them are two mansions in Azurest North. Despite having no formal training in architecture, Meredith designed many homes for her family and friends in Virginia, New York and Texas. Her first building was

https://www.vsuaaonline.com/azurest-south/amaza-lee-meredith-1895-1984

https://www.shebuildspodcast.com/episodes/amazaleemeredith

https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/changemakers/items/show/20

https://shainamote.com/blogs/journal/women-in-architecture-amaza-lee-meredith