Moses McKissack Ⅲ

Gabriel Moses McKissack III was born on May 8, 1879, in Pulaski, Tennessee. He had six brothers. His father Gabriel Moses McKissack II, whom he shared his name with, was a carpenter and builder; and his mother was Dolly Ann (née Maxwell).

His paternal grandfather Moses was from the Ashanti tribe (or Asante tribe, modern-day Ghana) and he was enslaved in 1790. His grandfather was purchased by William McKissack, a white builder who taught him the building trade. His grandfather married Mirian (1804–1865), who was Cherokee, and together they had fourteen children.

McKissack attended Pulaski Colored High School. He apprenticed in construction drawings for 5 years under James Porter. He also attended classes at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts and obtained architectural degrees through a correspondence course. In 1896, McKissack had moved to prepared construction drawings for B. F. McGrew and Pitman & Peterson.

From 1895 until 1905, McKissack built houses in Decatur, Alabama; Mount Pleasant, Tennessee; and Columbia, Tennessee. Followed by a move to Nashville in 1905, in order to open his own architecture firm McKissack Company, initially located in the Napier Court Building. His first document client was Granberry Jackson Sr., the Dean of architecture and engineering at Vanderbilt University. After in which he designed many other residences for faculty at Vanderbilt University. The firm's first major project was design of the Fisk University Carnegie Library (1908). This is a two-story Classic Revival style building was constructed from brick with a stone columned porch, and features an interior light well; its cornerstone was laid in 1908 by William Howard Taft, then the U.S. Secretary of War. Major projects designed by Moses McKissack during the 1910s included the main campus building for the Turner Normal and Industrial School for Negroes (1912) in Shelbyville, Tennessee; dormitories for Roger Williams University in Nashville; and Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. By 1920, Moses McKissack had acquired design clients throughout Nashville.

In 1912, he married Miranda P. Winter, together they had six sons.

In 1921, after the state of Tennessee instituted a registration law for architects, the McKissack brothers became two of the first registered architects in the state. In 1922, Calvin McKissack joined Moses and the brothers established the partnership of McKissack & McKissack.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed McKissack to the White House Conference on Housing Problems. In 1942, McKissack & McKissack received a large U.S. federal government contract to build and design the 99th Pursuit Squadron (Tuskegee Airmen) Air Base at Tuskegee, Alabama. The Air Base contract was the largest federal contract ever awarded to an African American company, valued at approximately US$5.8 million, and it made national news. The brothers were each awarded the Spaulding Medal by the National Negro Business League in 1942, for outstanding business achievements.