Amaza Lee Meredith

Amaza Lee Meredith (August 14, 1895 – 1984) was an American architect, educator and artist. Meredith was unable to enter the profession as an architect because of "both her race and her sex" as an African-American woman, and worked primarily as an art teacher at Virginia State University (then Virginia State College / Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute), where she founded the art department. She is best known for her residence, Azurest South, where she and her partner, Dr. Edna Meade Colson, resided together. Moreover, she co-founded the Azurest Syndicate Inc., a vacation destination for black middle class Americans on Sag Harbor, New York. As an educated black woman, Meredith is a rare example of a financially and socially independent black woman living in the time of Jim Crow Segregation Laws.

Early life and family

Meredith was born in Lynchburg, Virginia as a daughter of Samuel Peter Meredith and Emma Pink Kenney. She had three siblings, two sisters and a brother. Meredith maintained a lifelong good relationship with her older sister Maude. Samuel, Amaza's father, was a carpenter, and Emma, her mother, was a seamstress. Her father was white and her mother was black. Her parents were prohibited by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying in Virginia. In Amaza Lee Meredith's birth certificate, she is only identified as Emma Kenney's daughter. The name of the father is left out. Nevertheless, Samuel Meredith cared about his family and built them a house in which he moved in as well some years later. He also supported them financially. Not long after that, her father began to lose business as a result of the controversial marriage and was soon in debt. He committed suicide in 1915.

Despite the difficulties of being an interracial family in the era of segregation, both parents had a great influence on Meredith. Her carpenter father taught her how to draw blueprints and built models. He instilled in her the wish to become an architect. Her mother, who worked as a seamstress before having her children, believed education was the key against racist public opinion. Amaza's mother was relatively highly educated herself. She was a convincing, engaged woman and she built a local network of support at Lynchburg's Eight Street Baptist church, which was a center for female political and social activities. She supported her children's education by sending them to college.

Education Amaza Lee Meredith's educational journey started with her attending the Lynchburg elementary public schools. She graduated at the top of her class in 1915, despite suffering the loss of her father that year. Meredith finally got her "Summer School Professional Certificate" for teachers. She spent two years in the village despite the fact that she found the circumstances alarmingly bad, and the black community "dispossessed, disenfranchise and complacent." Later, she went back to Lynchburg and taught elementary school, before returning to college. After earning her bachelor's degree she returned to Virginia where she was hired by the then president of the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute to teach art. One of Evans' students at Armstrong High School in Richmond was Benjamin Leroy Wigfall.

Career in architecture Meredith's commitment to her family, friends, and the advancement of Black cultural equity was a guiding thread throughout her career. Meredith received Virginia's first land grant for African American scholars. Despite the fact that Amaza was never a registered architect, she was one of just a few black architects in practice at the time, and one of the country's few female black architects. (On the basis of the 1910 U.S. Census, only 59 black architects and 47 black draftsmen were employed.) The fact that most of Meredith's historical work has been lost, Virginia State University continues to honor her famous achievements. While her exact number of works is unknown, Amaza has been attributed with architectural design for houses in Virginia, Texas, and New York. The most prominent of them are two mansions in Azurest North. Despite having no formal training in architecture, Meredith designed many homes for her family and friends in Virginia, New York and Texas. Her first building was Azurest South, which was completed in 1939 and was designed completely by Meredith in the International Style. She and her partner, Colson, moved in together after its completion and it would be their primary residence for the rest of their lives. Azurest South, demonstrates her fascination with the avant-garde design, her familiarity with modern materials and construction details, and her courage in expressing non-traditional ideas in the public eye of the state's first land grant college for African Americans.

Azurest South is considered a rare example of the International Style in Virginia and displays her interest in avant-garde design. Meredith also used Azurest South as her own art studio. The archived documentation and remains of Azurest have inspired intersectional research on race, queerness, and spatial design during the Jim Crow Era. Also, she used her aesthetic and artistic talent to coordinate color schemes and draw blueprints for several campus buildings. For example, she worked with the Alumni House Committee from 1949 on in proposing the creation of an Alumni House. After her proposals were turned down, she decided to give half of Azurest South to the Alumni Association after her death, hoping it would be used as an Alumni House, as it actually is today. Also, she developed the "Kant Drop", a top that can be attached to any recyclable container. Meredith was named one of the Library of Virginia's African American Trailblazers in 2009, now represented on the Virginia Changemakers website. In 2018, the Virginia Capitol Foundation announced that Meredith's name would be on the Virginia Women's Monument's glass Wall of Honor.

Meredith's work became more widely recognized through Jacqueline Taylor's 2023 biography "Amaza Lee Meredith Imagines Herself Modern: Architecture and the Black American Middle Class," published by MIT Press. In "Dear Mazie," the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University curator Amber Esseiva invited contemporary artists to respond to Meredith's legacy, as recorded in her extensive correspondence, now housed in the Virginia State University archives. Solange Knowles and Saint Heron published a research journal titled "Azurest Blue: The Life and Legacy of Amaza Lee Meredith" in 2025, featuring five essays on her life and work as well as reproductions of archival documents, such as blueprints, photographs, and letters.

Works

Amaza Lee Meredith, Edna Meade Colson “Azurest South”, 1939, Ettrick Virginia Richards, Dr. F.F. “Hillside”, 1946, Sag Harbor NY Virginia State University Alumni House, 1949, Ettrick Virginia – plan only Spaulding, Dorothy “Edendot”, 1951, Sag Harbor NY Terry, Maude “HIHIL”, Sag Harbor NY Johnson, Dr. James H, 1954, Ettrick, Virginia Preston, Ann C. “Anndot”, 1956, Prairie View Gillfield Baptist Church Education Building, 1964, Petersburg Virginia Parker, Evelyn L., 1975 - Plans only Reed, Ettrick – Plans only