Grandison, K.I., 1996, From plantation to campus: process, community and the lay of the land in shaping the early Tuskegee Campus, in: Landscape Journal, 15, 1
- Author : Grandison, K.I.
- Year : 1996
- Journal/Series : Landscape Journal
- Volume Number (ANNUAL: Counting Volumes of the Year shown above) : 1
- Volume Number (CONSECUTIVE: Counting all Volumes of this Journal ever published) : 15
- Pages : 6-22
- Abstract in English : The development of Tuskegee’s campus is an inspiring story of the creativity and perseverance of African Americans as the struggled against and triumphed over formidable obstacles. While Tuskegee’s story has been told many times and from many different points of view, it has never been studied and documented in relation to landscape architecture. Landscape architecture, the profession that is concerned with modifying outdoor spaces for human use and enjoyment, has generally failed to recognize the experiences and contributions of African Americans and other minorities in shaping the American landscape. In stead, landscape architectural history narrates the story of the American majority and European predecessors. This article reviews the natural and cultural circumstances faced by the Tuskegee’s University during Booker T. Washington‘s administration form 1881 to 1915. It also explores how the subsequent of the campus responded to this context – a process of historical recovery that is still ongoing. In this regard, much is still be uncovered. This examination demonstrates that the desire for progress in the face of severe constraints imposed upon black people in post-Reconstruction Alabama created innovative approaches to development and to unusual physical results. The historic landscape of Tuskegee’s campus serves as an artifact of the African American experience in the South. Moreover, it challenges landscape architecture to expand the ways in which it conceptualizes it theory and practice. In this essay, the author tells the story of a different development process and its physical results. Taking a his object of study the campus of Tuskegee University, he explore how the development of the campus responded to the circumstances that the fledging institution faced form 1881-1915, during Bookers T. Washington’s administration. First the economic, social, and political contexts of the school, as well as the physical cultural features of its original site, will be established. The mechanism that evolved within this setting to develop the campus and to accomplish the other goals of the institution will be described. Finally, the author will investigate the manner in which the layout of the campus itself responds to both its site and its broader context. The campus of Tuskegee University is significant to American history. It is an artifact not only of an important epoch in the experiences of African Americans, but also of race relations in the South. In the midst of mounting repression and violence against Blacks, Washington essayed a program of conciliation and compromise with the Southern white power structure in the hope that his people would be allowed a fair chance at economic opportunity.
- Comments/Notes : KEYWORDS: landscape architecture, history, African Americans, minorities, Tuskegee’s University.