ABSTRACT
Overlooking the City of Petersburg in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, a single-story white stucco house nestles beside the Colonial Revival campus of Virginia State University. Reflecting the idiom of modern European architecture, the house is striking in its difference. Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), an African-American woman from Lynchburg, Virginia, designed the house in 1939 for herself and her female companion, Edna Colson. Meredith’s life, work, and modern architecture allows us a glimpse into African-American women’s struggles and strivings in the early twentieth century as they sought to become the ‘New Negro.’ Employing architecture and art to imagine herself modern, Meredith asserted her rights to a life more fulfilling, and identified as a member of what race leader W.E.B. DuBois called the Talented Tenth, a group that would transcend social, political, cultural, and economic restrictions to expand opportunities for and community uplift and change.
