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Achievement1892· arts

Robert Robinson Taylor Becomes First Black Graduate of MIT

Robert Robinson Taylor became the first Black American to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a degree in architecture in 1892. Booker T. Washington recruited him to Tuskegee Institute, where Taylor designed most of the campus buildings over the next four decades, including the iconic chapel. He trained generations of Black architects at a time when the profession was almost entirely closed to them.