An alumni family has gifted $600,000 to Tuskegee University, primarily to bring two historic buildings back online as living-learning facilities for Tuskegee students. The family wishes to remain anonymous, and has made the gift in the hopes of inspiring all Tuskegee alumni, friends and constituents to join them in supporting Tuskegee’s ongoing transformation.
$500,000 of the family’s gift will go toward completely renovating the buildings known as Emery I and Emery II as residential spaces for students. The remaining $100,000 of their gift will go toward other initiatives yet to be determined.
There are four Emery buildings, located in the historic area of campus near the main gate. They were designed by Robert R. Taylor, built by students in 1903 and 1905, respectively, and renovated in 1981. They were gifts of Miss Elizabeth Julia Emery. Miss Emery spent the first twenty years of her life in Cincinnati, Ohio and thereafter lived abroad in England. She had a memory from her childhood of harsh injustice toward Black people, so she sought out Tuskegee to put some of her wealth to use at age 70.
Read the full story – Alumni family makes historic living-learning facility gift to Tuskegee
This is so amazing. I love it, someone recognizes the value of Tuskegee as an HBCU and wants to bring a historic building on campus back online. WOW!!! Way to set the bar anonymous donor. Robert R. Taylor was the first black architect by the way and putting his building back online is a great way to honor him.