News

U.S. Postal Service Dedicates Robert R. Taylor Black Heritage Stamp

Published

11 years ago

February 23, 2015

The US Postal Service has added Robert R. Taylor, the U.S.’s first academically trained African American architect, to their Black Heritage Stamp series.

In a ceremony at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum last week, Taylor’s great-granddaughter, White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, dedicated the stamp with Postmaster General Megan Brennan.

As related in historian Ellen Weiss’s book “Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee” (NewSouth Books), Taylor received an architectural degree at MIT, and was then recruited by Booker T. Washington to teach and help design the buildings of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (later Tuskegee University).

Taylor’s buildings were seen, in defiance of strengthening Jim Crow laws, as a public expression of racial pride and progress. Weiss’s lush hardcover book recounts Taylor’s life and accomplishments alongside over 100 photographs, including a full pictorial catalog of Taylor’s work at Tuskegee University.

“Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee” received the Award of Excellence from the Society of Architectural Historians.

“Anytime I face a daunting challenge and self-doubt creeps in, I think of my great grandfather, Robert Taylor, the son of a slave, who traveled from Wilmington, NC to attend M.I.T. in 1882,” Valerie Jarrett said.

“He believed that with a good education, hard work, relentless determination and a dedication to family, there were no limits to what he could accomplish,” she said. “The example he set gives me strength and courage. My family is proud to stand on his shoulders and we know that it is our responsibility to embrace his values, to ensure that his legacy will be ‘forever stamped’ in the conscious of future generations.”

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Oakland Post: Week of July 29 – August 4, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 29 – August 4, 2026

Published

11 hours ago

August 1, 2026

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Black History

OP-ED: ‘The Trusted Messenger’ and the Black Vote

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Now, as we approach one of the most important Midterm elections in the history of this nation, it appears that, once again, the Black Press will be expected to carry the message about voter turnout, while political and campaign dollars go to the White mainstream media.

Published

3 days ago

July 29, 2026

bpusa-syndication

It is a well-established fact that the Black Press is and always has been the “Trusted Messenger” of the Black community. With that being said, it is also very interesting that when many political organizations and donors decided to support Voter Registration and Get Out The Vote, those donors gave their dollars predominantly to Black organizations like the Urban League, the NAACP, the League of Voters, and other nonprofit groups. Those groups will prepare and send out press releases about such voter participation efforts since Black people were responsible primarily for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

What is most interesting is that those press releases rarely find their way onto CNN or the major news networks. Those press releases and calls to Black voter participation are carried in the Black Press. However, the dollars that support those press releases being written, nor the ads that carry the message of those releases, reach the Black Press. Historically, the dollars behind those messages do not find their way to the very Black Press that carries those messages.

Now, as we approach one of the most important Midterm elections in the history of this nation, it appears that, once again, the Black Press will be expected to carry the message about voter turnout, while political and campaign dollars go to the White mainstream media.

Those who are spending the billions of dollars that will go to Campaign Finance appear to have forgotten that elections are won and lost on a single vote.

Now is the time to remind the candidates, the political Initiatives and Propositions that will appear on the ballots across this nation, that the Black Vote must not be taken for granted. It does not belong to any particular political party or interest group. It can not be judged by whether it exists in a Blue or Red State.

The Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and supporters of Initiatives should not assume that our votes are unimportant.

Elections are won on a single vote.

The United States Supreme Court in Reynolds vs. Sims, 1964. That case established the ‘One Person, One Vote” rule. The rule in that case made it mandatory to base legislative seats on population within districts rather than on geography, and guaranteed Equal Protection coverage under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

That principle has not been abolished, and neither should we act as if our one vote does not count. Let us not forget our own values, and we look toward the Midterm elections. The “Trusted Messenger” can make the difference.