Robert Charles Bates

Robert Charles Bates (January 27, 1869 – May 2, 1950), commonly known as R. Charles Bates, was an American architect, educator, and textbook author. He was an African-American architect and helped design and build many of the Claflin University campus buildings, a historically black university (HBU) in South Carolina. He is thought to the first Black teacher of architecture at a HBU; and the first African- American author of an architecture textbook.

It is thought that he took a correspondence course in mechanical drawing (possibly from Scranton Correspondence School in Scranton, Pennsylvania).

Bates married Maybelle Dean from Elmira, New York, and together they had five children.

Career He was appointed in 1888 as a professor at Claflin University, and as the superintendent of manual training in carpentry, drafting, and architecture (which included various titles held), and his selection for the role had been determined by the Freedmen's Aid Society and the Southern Education Society. Two years later he published a textbook based on his class lectures, it may be the first architecture book authored by an African American.

In 1895 until 1896, he travelled for one year and studied in technical schools across Europe.

Bates' profile was included in the biographical dictionary African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945 (2004) by Dreck Spurlock Wilson. However, many of the biographical details of Bates's life in Wilson's book were unknown or uncertain at the time of publishing, including the circumstances of hisn death. Fisk Building (main building, 1899) the north and south towers at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina (destroyed by a fire in 1913) Fisk Building (main building, 1900) classroom annex at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina (destroyed by a fire in 1913) John F. Slater Manual training building at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina