Mel Streeter

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Mel Streeter (1931 – June 2006) was an American architect and college basketball player from Riverside, California. He was the second African-American to play for the University of Oregon Ducks in the early 1950s and the team’s only Black player at that time. He declined an offer to join UCLA’s basketball team to study architecture, and he attended the University of Oregon on an Army scholarship, earning an architecture degree in 1955.

After serving in the Army, Streeter settled in Seattle, living in the Magnolia neighborhood from 1955 to 1957. He faced barriers finding work as an African American architect, applying to many firms before finally getting hired. In 1967, he started his own architecture firm, which grew to about 30 architects before the partnership dissolved.

Streeter married Kathleen Burgess in 1954 in one of Oregon’s early legally mixed-race marriages. They had four sons: Doug, Kurt, Jon, and Ken. He served on Seattle’s planning commission from 1989 to 2000.

Streeter died in June 2006 after years-long struggles with amyloidosis. In August 2006, Senator Maria Cantwell paid tribute to him, calling him a pioneer who helped break barriers for Black architects in Seattle.