The Black Family Who Built America: The McKissacks, Two Centuries of Daring Pioneers

This book, written with Nick Chiles, is an excellent examination of one Black American family’s rise from enslavement to become successful architects, builders, and businesspeople. The family trade started with Moses McKissack, a craftsman enslaved in 19th-century North Carolina whose children were eventually emancipated. The McKissacks established themselves in the building trades, despite facing racism, and went on to shape over a century’s worth of buildings, from the Morris Memorial Building in 1920s Nashville to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. Despite their success, the McKissacks are lamentably absent from most architectural histories. Author Daniel is now the fifth generation of McKissacks running her family’s century-old business, the oldest minority- and woman-owned architecture and construction firm in the United States. Beyond her family history, she delves into the contemporary building trade and the dynamics of being a woman of color in a field dominated by white men.