According to an article from the December 20, 2007 Dallas Observer:
"It was, in the early 1900s, the hub of Dallas' then-thriving middle-class black community -- a social see-and-be-seen and a business center, among its many purposes. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, George Washington Carver and Marcus Garvey were featured guests as well. 'This building was the black professional building, says author and historian Alan Govenar. 'It was a meeting ground of the best minds of the day.' Adds Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price. 'It's a signal of an era where African-Americans in this city understood that they could in fact produce something within the confines of whatever constraints were out there'."
Allen Chapel AME |
Joshua Chapel AME |
Pittman did not work as an architect after 1928. Supporting himself as a carpenter, he published a controversial weekly newspaper, The Brotherhood Eyes.
Other buildings Pittman designed which are still standing are Allen Chapel AME in Fort Worth, Joshua Chapel AME in Waxahachie, Wesley Chapel AME in Houston, and St. James AME in Dallas, now used as a office building. He and other African American architects were the subject of a symposium earlier this year by the Dallas Architecture Forum
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