Pride of Place

Preservationist Brent Leggs leads the effort to revitalize and sustain essential sites in African American history

- TROY J. MCMULLEN

THE MUNICIPAL POOL house in Wichita, Kansas, was designed in 1969 by Charles McAfee, one of the most important African American architects in the U. S. A former president of the National Organization of Minority Architects, McAfee is a housing activist who dedicated much of his professional life to creating affordable housing and tackling social inequalities. He was also an enthusiastic adopter of modernism and went on to win numerous accolades, including the American Institute of Architects Kansas Excellence in Architecture Award and the Federal Housing Administration's First Honor Award. The pool represents another of the architect's efforts to serve others: a venue for a historically Black community that had previously been denied access to recreational facilities due to segregation.

So when the water complex faced closure, local supporters mounted a campaign to save the architect's modernist structure, which is made up of distinctive modular shades and a clean-lined, L-shaped pool. That fight caught the attention of Brent Leggs, a strategic advisor for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. He backed an effort to make the storied structure a grant recipient from the new Conserving Black Modernism program, part of the Action Fund that protects the contributions of African American architects to the modernist movement.