Robert Charles Bates (January 27, 1869 – May 2, 1950),^[1] was an American architect, educator, and textbook author.^[2][3] He was an African American architect and helped design and build many of the Claflin University campus buildings, a historically black university (HBU) in South Carolina.^[2][4][5] He is thought to be the first Black teacher of architecture at a HBU; and the first African American author of an architecture textbook.^[6][7]

Robert Charles Bates was born on January 27, 1869, in Columbia, South Carolina, where his father was a farmer.^[1] It is thought that he took a correspondence course in mechanical drawing (possibly from Scranton Correspondence School in Scranton, Pennsylvania).^[1] He attended Clafin University's Normal School to become a teacher, but he was short two years from graduation.^[when?][1]

In a turn of events and despite not graduating, he was appointed as the superintendent of manual training at Claflin University, determined by the Freedmen's Aid Society and the Southern Education Society.^[when?][1] By fall of 1890, Bates was teaching architectural drawing at Claflin, and is believed to be the first Black teacher of architecture at a HBU.^[1][8][7] Two years later he published a textbook based on his class lectures, and despite being poorly written, it may be the first architecture book authored by an African American.^[1][6]

From 1897 until 1900, Bates moved to Upstate New York in order to teach mechanical drawing at Elmira Reformatory.^[1] Followed by teaching vocational trade at the Jacob Tome Institution for Black juvenile delinquents and orphans in Port Deposit, Cecil County, Maryland.^[1][9]

Many of the biographical details of Bate's life are unknown.^[1] Bates' profile was included in the biographical dictionary African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945 (2004).

Bates died in Spencer, New York, on May 2, 1950, at the age of 81.^[10]

• Bates, R. Charles (1892). The Elementary Principles of Architecture and Building. Boston, MA: Press of Geo. H. Ellis.

• T. Willard Lewis Chapel (1890) at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina^[1]
• Fisk Building (main building, 1899) the north and south towers at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina (destroyed by a fire in 1913)^{[1][2][11][12]}
• Fisk Building (main building, 1900) classroom annex at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina (destroyed by a fire in 1913)^[1]
• John F. Slater Manual training building at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina^[1]

• African-American architects
• Robert Robinson Taylor, another early Black teacher of architecture at a HBU
• William Wilson Cooke, African-American architect also at Claflin