The grandson of an enslaved master builder started working as a draughtsman at 11, won Vanderbilt faculty commissions before he held a license, forced Tennessee to register him, and put 1,500 workers on the first major Army air base built by a Black contractor.
BEJ Intelligence · Connected history
Most family trades end where they begin, with a skilled pair of hands, a local name and a business that disappears when the craftsman dies. Moses McKissack III changed what the McKissack family sold. His grandfather and father had sold labor and craft.
He sold a professional credential, and then the capacity to organize work at scale under that credential.
There were three steps.
The first was a cross-market entry point: in 1905 he built a house in Nashville for Granbery Jackson, Vanderbilt's dean of architecture and engineering. That led to commissions for more Vanderbilt faculty houses in the city's white West End (Tennessee Encyclopedia, Nashville Public Library).
The second was the license.
When Tennessee's architect-registration law took effect in 1921, the McKissack brothers were at first refused permission to sit the exam. Once allowed in, they passed, and then the licenses themselves were held back. Only national press coverage got them issued, and the McKissacks became the state's first registered Black architects (Nashville Public Library).
A law that could have closed the profession to them became a barrier that protected the firm from unlicensed competitors.
The third was federal scale.
The firm took on Works Progress Administration (WPA) contracts in the late 1930s. In 1941 it was the general contractor for Tuskegee Army Air Field, which the Air Force describes as "the first major base built by a black construction company" (U.S. Air Force).
In November 1941 the Atlanta Daily World reported 1,500 workers on the site, about 1,000 Black and 500 white (Atlanta Daily World).
In Jim Crow Alabama, a Black firm was directing white labour on a federal defence project.
Most accounts give the Tuskegee contract as $5.7 million and call it the largest federal contract ever awarded to a Black-owned company. Construction-era sources give a much smaller figure.
This profile sets out the conflict instead of repeating the headline number, because the gap is a lesson in its own right.
The family tradition starts with an enslaved man.
Moses McKissack (1790–1865) was of Asante descent, sold to William McKissack of North Carolina, and trained as a brickmaker and master builder. In 1822 he married Mirian (1804–1865), who was Cherokee, and they had fourteen children (Tennessee Encyclopedia).
Nashville Public Library says he was able to sell bricks after he was freed (Nashville Public Library).
His ninth child, Gabriel Moses McKissack II (1840–1922), became a master carpenter in Giles County. Nashville Public Library credits him with spiral staircases and decorative gingerbread trim at Nashville's Maxwell House Hotel. He had six sons (McKissack & McKissack).
Read that as an operator, not a historian.
Two generations had already proved the family could build. What they lacked was ownership of the client relationship. Under slavery, the enslaver contracted the work and kept the payment. After emancipation, a Black carpenter in the Tennessee hill country still worked under white architects and contractors who held the drawings and the client.
The family's skill was a cost center in someone else's business.
Moses III was born on 8 May 1879 in Pulaski, Giles County, the town where the Ku Klux Klan had been founded fourteen years earlier, and went to the segregated Pulaski schools (Wikipedia).
By the time he set up in Nashville in 1905, Tennessee had segregated its railways, schools and public life.
Segregation split his market in two:
Tennessee's architect-registration law took effect in 1921.
For a Black practitioner this was a real threat: a credential requirement run by an all-white state board could have ended his career by administrative decision.
The Nashville Historical Newsletter describes the board's reasoning: officials allowed the exam "evidently assuming neither brother would be able to pass," then "continued to dither after both men sailed through the exam," until "the national media took up the story" (Nashville Historical Newsletter).
When the licenses were granted, the position reversed.
Licensing kept unlicensed builders, white or Black, out of design work that required a registered architect. The McKissacks had gone from facing a barrier to holding one.
No source documents bank financing, outside investors or a line of credit for the firm. This profile found no evidence on how McKissack funded working capital, payroll or bonding, which matters most for the 1941 contract (see editor's note).
What is documented is that the firm grew from residential commissions to institutional ones to public contracts, a sequence consistent with growth funded from retained earnings.
Moses III was skilled in building by age 11, according to Nashville Public Library. In 1890 a Pulaski architect hired him to draw designs and plans and help in his construction business.
Wikipedia names him as James Porter, under whom McKissack spent five years producing construction drawings. In 1896 he was preparing drawings for B. F. McGrew and the firm Pitman & Peterson (Wikipedia).
From 1895 to 1905 he built houses in Decatur, Alabama, and in Mount Pleasant and Columbia, Tennessee (Tennessee Encyclopedia).
WNPT describes him as a construction superintendent by 1895 (WNPT).
This decade explains the business that followed.
Before he was 26 he had done the three jobs that make up a design-build firm: drawing, managing crews and delivering finished buildings. He had done them on other people's accounts, which meant someone else carried the risk while he learned.
He took architecture courses by correspondence.
Wikipedia says the degree came through a correspondence course and that he attended classes at Springfield College in Massachusetts.
Nashville Public Library and WATE say both brothers took correspondence courses from MIT. African American Registry places Calvin's certificate at the International Correspondence School in Scranton, Pennsylvania (see editor's note).
In 1905 he came to Nashville to build the house of Granbery Jackson, the Vanderbilt dean. He first set up in the Napier Court Building (Wikipedia).
The job led to more commissions for Vanderbilt faculty houses in the West End.
The value of that first client lay in his position, not the fee. A dean of architecture and engineering is the ideal reference for an architect-builder, because his endorsement answers the client's question of whether the builder is competent.
Granbery Jackson's house still stands at 204 24th Avenue South and is now a Vanderbilt sorority house.
In 1908 McKissack won his first major commission, the Carnegie Library at Fisk University.
It is a two-storey Classical Revival brick building with a stone-columned porch and an interior light well. William Howard Taft, then Secretary of War, laid the cornerstone (Wikipedia).
Nashville Public Library calls it the first major structure designed by an African American architect in the country. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1909 he listed himself as an architect in the Nashville City Directory for the first time (Tennessee Encyclopedia).
Note the order.
He built the reference project first and claimed the professional title afterwards. He also tied his business to Andrew Carnegie's library philanthropy, which funded buildings across the South on a standard model.
A completed Carnegie library worked as a portfolio piece for other campuses seeking the same grants.
In the following decade he took work in both of the markets segregation created:
| Segment | Projects (sources: Wikipedia, Nashville Public Library) |
|---|---|
| Black higher education | Roger Williams University dormitories; Lane College buildings, Jackson; Turner Normal and Industrial School main building, Shelbyville (1912) |
| White residential | Vanderbilt faculty houses; House residence (1919); Comer residence (1920); Bastian and Sexton residences (1921) |
| Black professional residential | George Hubbard House (1920–21), Colonial Revival, now on the National Register |
By 1920 he was designing for clients across Nashville and Tennessee. He married Miranda P. Winter in 1912, and they had six sons.
The registration law took effect in 1921.
The exam refusal, the delayed licenses and the press coverage followed, and the brothers became two of the state's first registered architects.
In 1922 his younger brother Calvin Lunsford McKissack (1890–1968) formally joined him and they formed McKissack & McKissack (Tennessee Encyclopedia).
Calvin brought his own experience. He had been educated at Fisk and had practised independently in Dallas from 1912, designing and building dormitories and churches (McKissack & McKissack).
He later taught architecture at Tennessee A&I and directed industrial arts at Pearl High School (Nashville Public Library).
That teaching placed him in the institutions that were also the firm's clients.
In the interwar years the firm became the leading architect for Black institutional Nashville:
| Year | Project |
|---|---|
| 1925 | Capers C.M.E. Church |
| 1924–1926 | Morris Memorial Building, National Baptist Convention, 4th and Charlotte |
| 1927 | Tennessee A&I (now TSU) Memorial Library and other campus buildings |
| 1927 | Old Washington Junior High School |
| 1927 | Beebe Memorial CME Church, Washington, North Carolina (NC Architects) |
| n.d. | A.M.E. Sunday School Union publishing house, Art Deco (demolished in the 1970s) |
| 1936 | Pearl High School (now Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet) |
| 1937 | Ford Green Elementary |
Nashville Public Library notes the firm "became best known for its Art Deco-style buildings."
It also records that in the 1930s, when there were about 45 Black architects in the country, McKissack & McKissack was one of the only Black-owned and Black-run firms in the South.
In the late 1930s the firm won WPA contracts and designed federal housing, including the College Hill development in northwest Nashville (Tennessee Encyclopedia, Nashville Public Library).
Under President Roosevelt, McKissack was appointed to the White House Conference on Housing Problems. Wikipedia dates the appointment to 1942.
The New Deal was the bridge to the firm's largest job. Federal contracting brought procurement rules, specifications, inspections and reporting, and it gave the firm a record with federal agencies.
Just before Tuskegee, the firm also completed Tuskegee Institute's Infantile Paralysis Hospital, which earned it Tuskegee Institute's full backing (NPS Special Resource Study).
The Army Air Corps agreed under political pressure to train Black pilots, and in 1941 it needed a basic and advanced training field near Tuskegee, Alabama.
According to the National Park Service, "despite some concerns and much maneuvering," the War Department gave the construction contract to McKissack & McKissack. It hired a separate Black architect, Hilyard R. Robinson of Washington, D.C., to design the facility (NPS Special Resource Study).
The book Freedom Flyers reports both awards in February 1941 (Freedom Flyers).
The contractor began grading on 22 July 1941. Sources give construction start dates between 12 and 23 July (Tuskegee University chronology, NPS National Register nomination).
The first cadets started basic training on an unfinished field on 8 November 1941 (U.S. Air Force).
The finished base covered nearly 1,700 acres and had four intersecting paved runways, three double hangars, barracks and administrative buildings (Air & Space Forces Magazine).
Calvin ran the site. On 3 November 1941 the Atlanta Daily World reported workers "toiling day and night on three eight hour shifts."
Moses III was looking after the firm's other contracts.
Calvin said his task was "to turn over to the United States army a plant completed to specifications laid out by army engineers, within the prescribed time and cost limits, and to prove when he does so that no mistake was made when the contract was awarded to a colored firm."
The paper counted 1,500 skilled and unskilled men under him, at about 1,000 Black to 500 white (Atlanta Daily World).
An Auburn dissertation puts about 22 subcontractors under the McKissack general contract (Bryant, Auburn University).
The Air Force records that the base was the first major one built by a Black construction company. In 1942 the National Negro Business League gave both brothers its Spaulding Medal (Wikipedia).
Alabama licensed the firm in 1941, and Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi followed in 1943 (McKissack & McKissack).
The Tuskegee job worked as an interstate credential.
Moses III led the firm until he died at home in Nashville on 12 December 1952, aged 73. When he died, the firm was building an elementary school that the city named after him in 1954.
It is now McKissack Middle School (Nashville Public Library).
Calvin became president and general manager.
| Stream | Mechanism | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Design fees | Registered-architect services | 1909 on, protected by licence from 1921–22 |
| Construction | General contracting and design-build | 1905 on, with Tuskegee as GC in 1941 |
| Institutional clients | Black colleges, churches, denominational publishers, schools | 1908 on |
| Private residential | Vanderbilt faculty houses, white and Black professionals | 1905–1920s |
| Public clients | WPA, federal housing, Metro Nashville schools, the War Department | Late 1930s on |
No fee schedules, annual revenue, margins or employee counts survive in the consulted sources. Nashville Public Library reports that by 1975 the firm had completed more than 3,000 building projects, including about 2,000 churches.
That figure covers the firm's whole history to 1975, not Moses III's tenure alone.
The firm's main assets were intangible: a professional license, a portfolio of finished institutional buildings, relationships with the Black denominations and colleges of the South, and, after 1941, a federal performance record.
Its later licenses in 22 more states (Nashville Public Library) turned that record into access to other markets.
| Role | Holder |
|---|---|
| Founder, design lead, business development | Moses III |
| Partner from 1922; field superintendent at Tuskegee | Calvin L. McKissack |
| Field workforce, Tuskegee, November 1941 | About 1,500 (≈1,000 Black, 500 white) |
| Subcontractors, Tuskegee | About 22 |
| Separate architect of record, Tuskegee | Hilyard R. Robinson |
The brothers divided the work.
One ran the field operation while the other kept the rest of the business going. That is how a small firm takes on a contract much larger than its usual work without dropping existing clients.
Customers came through referrals at every stage: the Vanderbilt dean to his faculty colleagues; the Fisk library to other campus work; Calvin's teaching posts to Tennessee A&I and Pearl High School; the Tuskegee hospital to Tuskegee Institute's support for the airfield bid.
The firm grew through institutions that vouched for it.
| Risk | How it was handled |
|---|---|
| Credibility as a Black architect with white clients | Entered through the most authoritative referrer available, a dean of engineering |
| Exclusion by licensing | Sat the exam, passed, and used national press to force the licences |
| Dependence on one segment | Spread across Black institutional, white residential and public work |
| Execution risk on Tuskegee | Delegated field command to Calvin; worked to Army engineers' specifications |
| Political risk on Tuskegee | Had Tuskegee Institute's backing; separate Black architect of record |
| Founder succession | Brother, then son, then daughter-in-law (see below) |
The Fisk Carnegie Library, the George Hubbard House and other McKissack buildings are on the National Register. So are Pearl High School (now an academic magnet school) and the Morris Memorial Building.
Nashville named McKissack Park, the McKissack Park neighborhood and McKissack Middle School after him.
Tuskegee Army Air Field trained nearly 1,000 Black pilots between 1941 and 1946, the men known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
After Calvin died in 1968, Moses III's son William DeBerry McKissack (1925–1988) led the firm, followed by William's wife, Leatrice Buchanan McKissack (Tennessee Encyclopedia).
Nashville Public Library says Leatrice turned down several offers to buy the company. Two of their daughters then built separate businesses.
Deryl McKissack founded the present McKissack & McKissack in Washington, D.C., in 1990 "as a sole entrepreneur working with very limited financial resources" (McKissack & McKissack).
Cheryl McKissack Daniel acquired and re-established the family business in 2000 (Nashville Public Library).
Both trace their firms to 1905.
The Art Deco A.M.E. publishing house was demolished in the 1970s.
Firm-wide totals such as the 3,000 projects are not broken down in any source, so it is impossible to say how much of Moses III's own work still stands.
Two errors are repeated widely.
Many accounts say the firm "designed and built" the base, but the National Park Service and Freedom Flyers name Hilyard Robinson as architect and McKissack as contractor. And the $5.7 million figure conflicts with construction-era sources, as set out below.
None of the consulted sources identifies a public collection of Moses III's drawings, correspondence or accounts.
A Black-owned firm in the Jim Crow South could hold the professional credential, own the client relationships, and run a federal defense project with a mixed-race workforce of 1,500, on schedule.
The Army chose an all-Black design and construction team for the Tuskegee base partly for political reasons.
Calvin's own words make the point: he had to deliver "to prove... that no mistake was made when the contract was awarded to a colored firm."
Two generations of McKissacks had the skill. Moses III gained the license and the client relationships. In any field, the person who holds the credential and the client captures more value than the person doing the work.
Fifteen years as a draughtsman and site superintendent for other firms taught him drawing, crew management and delivery before he risked his own money.
A Vanderbilt dean of architecture and engineering was the strongest possible reference for an architect-builder. One endorsement from the right person can open a whole market.
The Fisk Carnegie Library came in 1908, the directory listing as an architect in 1909. Let the work establish you before you claim the professional standing.
Carnegie library grants, WPA contracts and wartime defence work each produced many similar projects. A finished project under a program qualifies you for the next one.
The 1921 registration law nearly shut the brothers out. Once licensed, they were protected from unlicensed competitors. When a gate goes up in your industry, get through it early.
The licenses came after national press took up the story. When a regulator blocks you without legal grounds, public scrutiny can force a decision that private appeals cannot.
Black institutions were a dependable base, and white residential clients added scale. Rely on the market that trusts you while you win the one that has to be convinced.
Calvin taught at Tennessee A&I and Pearl High School, and both became clients. Being inside an institution builds trust that a sales pitch cannot.
Calvin ran Tuskegee while Moses III ran everything else. A small firm can take on a contract many times its normal size if the founders divide field execution from the rest of the business.
After Tuskegee came licenses in Alabama (1941) and in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi (1943). Use a flagship job to enter new jurisdictions.
"To prove... that no mistake was made" is what any first-of-its-kind contractor faces. Price that scrutiny into your schedule, quality control and reporting.
The $5.7 million figure is cited everywhere, while construction-era sources point to $1.5–2 million. Investors, publishers and executives should check contract values against primary documents.
The firm went from brother to son to daughter-in-law, then split between two granddaughters, each claiming the 1905 founding. Legacy firms need formal agreements on ownership and use of the name.
None of the consulted sources locates Moses III's business records. If you don't preserve your contracts, drawings and accounts, others will tell your history with less accuracy.
Sources disagree on these points:
Yesterday's Architects is a weekly Black Executive Journal series examining how historical business leaders of African descent acquired capital, organized labor and distribution, priced risk, and built institutions under hostile legal and market conditions.
