ABSTRACT
The first African American architect of prominence from Columbus, Ohio, Leon Ransom Jr., was born in Columbus on April 30, 1929, to attorney Leon A. Ransom Sr. and Willa C.Ransom. In 1931 the Ransoms moved to Washington, D.C., where the elder Ransom taught at Howard University’s trailblazing Law School from 1931 until 1946. Homemaker Willa Ransom later worked in her husband’s law firm. Raised in the nation’s capital, Leon Jr. attended Mott Elementary School, Banneker Junior High School, and Dunbar High School, graduating in 1946. Leon’s sister, Mary Jean Hunter, reminisced, “we always knew that some day Leon was going to build something. As a child he spent hours putting together model airplanes; elaborate structures with his Erector sets; and intricate systems of dams, pools, and bridges in our backyard.”1 At the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., he majored in geography and was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in 1950, he married Delores Collins of the District of Columbia on June 17, 1950. Returning to The Catholic University of America, he received his master’s degree in architecture in 1953.
