It’s just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday night, and the line to get into the Surrogate’s Court is filled with people in Tabi flats, platform Timberlands, fur coats with tufted, voluminous collars and Teflar bags. The building typically serves as an office to deal with the wills and belongings New Yorkers leave behind, but tonight, it’s the scene of Solange Knowles’s book launch.

The zine, published through Saint Heron, Solange’s multidisciplinary cultural agency and art institute, centers on the life and legacy of Amaza Lee Meredith, a Black and queer architect, educator, and Sag Harbor community developer. Meredith founded the arts department at Virginia State University in 1935 and finished her first building in 1939 at a time when she was one of the country’s few female Black architects. T

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