Section or Category (Heading 5): Arts & Culture

Title (H1): Architect With Local Roots Plays Part in Black History

Staff Report

James A. Chaffers, D. Arch., FAIA, NCARB, is a 1959 Valedictorian graduate of ‘old’ (but not forgotten) Lincoln High School of Ruston, Louisiana. He continued his education at Southern University in Baton Rouge, graduating Magna cum laude.

After completing five years of military service as an officer — including combat duty in Vietnam, Chaffers went on to graduate from the University of Michigan and became the recipient of the nation’s first Professional Doctor of Architecture degree. Chaffers completed further architecture and engineering studies at Stanford University, Terman Engineering Center, Palo Alto, CA. Upon receiving his doctorate, Dr. Chaffers accepted an invitation to join the faculty of the College of Architecture at the University of Michigan. After 41 years, he still teaches as an Emeritus Professor of Architecture.

MLK

Dr. Chaffers was asked, in April 1997, to serve as Senior Design Consultant for the design of a “living memorial” in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Guided by competition criteria co-developed by Dr. Chaffers, the winning entry for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial emerged from design entries submitted by over 900 designers from 52 countries, worldwide. After 14 years of planning and construction, the MLK Memorial was completed in August 2011 and high-lighted with an Official Presidential Unveiling Ceremony officiated by President Barack Obama. Commemorated as a ‘Stone of Hope,’ Dr. King’s Memorial joins a National Path of Leadership and sits on a triangular path of Presidents — a revered path that includes, The George Washington Monument, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and The Abraham Lincoln Memorial. This cornerstone of Love, Justice, Peace, and Possibility now stands in the U.S. Capital, on the U.S. National Mall in Washington, DC.

Teaching and Professional Practice

Teaching at the University of Michigan, Chaffers has received three “Distinguished Faculty” and three “Outstanding Teacher” Awards. The Lincoln Parish resident has also been honored as “Educator of the Year” at Michigan Colleges and Universities.

In further recognition of his distinguished teaching and professional practice, he recently earned elevation to the “College of Fellows, “FAIA, within The American Institute of Architects. (Elevation to “Fellow” status is among the highest honors that the American Architectural Profession can bestow upon one of its members.

Chaffers heads his architectural firm, J. Chaffers • Architect LLC, as Design Principal and President.

On Black HISTORY . . .

The most faithful spirit of Black History is its ‘eight-generational’ accounting of a people’s American and African lineage. In keeping with this spirit, Dr. Chaffers shares that his classes . . . “weave talent and passion with persevering vigor, collaborative trust, and unrelenting optimism.”

Quoting Dr. Chaffers again, he shares that “Black History illuminates and deeply saturates all dimensions of my life’s journey. As such, my life of teaching speaks as a clarion, carrying gifts of other voices and other visibilities, loud and clear.