Louis H. Persley


Louis Hudson Persley, was an American architect. Persley became the first African American to register with the new Georgia State Board of Registered Architects on April 5, 1920. He was part of what was possibly the nation’s first black architecture firm, Taylor and Persley, a partnership founded in July 1920 with Robert Robinson Taylor. He had several spellings of his name including Louis Hudison Persley, Lewis H. Persley, and Louis Pursley.

Biography

Louis Persley was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, to Black parents Maxine and Thomas K. Persley. He attended Lincoln University, and graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1914. He was a professor of architectural and mechanical drawing from 1915 until 1916 at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.
In July 1920, Persely and fellow architect Robert Robinson Taylor had formed a black architecture firm together, Taylor and Persley. This was possibly the first black architecture firm in the United States. They collaborated on many designs, including of several buildings on Tuskegee Institute campus.
He died on July 13, 1932, at the age of 42, of kidney failure, and he is buried at Linwood Cemetery in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood of Macon, Georgia. A historical marker commemorates him in front of the First AME Church in Athens, Georgia. Persley's profile was included in the biographical dictionary African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945.

Buildings