Brick by brick, Deryl McKissack is building on a legacy. If you've ever taken in the magnitude of memorials, you've seen her handiwork.

"In a project like this, you know, there are a thousand moving parts," McKissack said.

For her, it's in the blood. She's part of a long line of architects, builders and dreamers.

"My family goes back to my great-great-grandfather who was a slave and came to this country in 1790. And he was a builder as a slave. And he passed a trade of building down to my great-grandfather," McKissack continued.

He would pass it down to his sons, who would become the first Black licensed architects in the southeast and officially start the family business in 1905. But it didn't end there. McKissack's father also took on the family legacy and her mother continued the work after his illness.  

"I started at six in the family business with my father. He would take us to work with him on Saturdays. I'm a twin and my mother needed a break," McKissack said. "And so he would take us on Saturdays and prop up on the drawing boards — because we didn't have computers back then — and he would have us draw."

In 1990, armed with a degree in civil engineering and $1000, McKissack launched her own firm.

"I had a lot to prove," she said. "I was one person. I was Black. I was female in a male-dominated industry. Why would anybody want to work with me?"

But somebody did eventually, after she picked up the phone and reached out to 150 potential clients.

"I don't need a handout," McKissack said. "If you give me an opportunity, I'm not going to let you down. And I built on that. My first client was Georgetown. I started with a $5,000 fee project and within six months I signed a million dollars worth of work with them."

From there, the repertoire grew from the U.S. Treasury restoration to modernizing D.C. area schools, to the design of Ghana's Cape Coast museum and project management on several U.S. airports.

"This particular job, you know, there was work on a taxiway in the apron all around the concourse. There was a lot of different activities here in the concourse."

But it was the appointment as architect of record for the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial that solidified McKissack's own stamp on history.

"I think about my ancestors and what they went through, the atrocities they went through — Jim Crow laws and you name it, slavery and all of that — for me to be sitting here today and even be sitting there then would just bring tears to my eyes because there had never been a time when a Black firm had designed something on a national mall."

Today her firm handles more than $15 billion in projects. But it wasn't a crystal stair. She says she faced misogyny and racism along the way.

"I've been discriminated against by Black men as well as White men," McKissacks said. "You want to say, you know, 'It's just a white male world and da da da da da.' But that's not true when you're a woman coming into this. And it's microaggressions in the sense that you can see them huddling together. You're left out."

A joint report from two architectural organizations found 2% of the nation's architects identify as African American. The barriers of obtaining licensure include the cost and a lack of support from their employer.

McKissack says she has come up with a plan to diversify the industry, enlisting some of the biggest firms in the country.

"Board members need to be Black in those companies so that there is a true understanding at the top of how policy makes Black people feel uncomfortable or how things are said and written," McKissack said. "So there are microaggressions, and then there's Black companies that need to be sustained."

Because like the McKissacks before her, she's laying a foundation she hopes lasts for generations to come.

"I believe that everybody is unique," she said. "They come here with a special purpose. And when they find that purpose, nothing can stop them. And as long as they're working and walking in that purpose, nothing can stop them."

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The Seattle Kraken say they will make National Hockey League history during Thursday night's game against Winnipeg when play-by-play announcer Everett Fitzhugh and analyst JT Brown team up to form the first all-Black television broadcast crew to call an NHL game.

Fitzhugh and Brown will appear on ROOT Sports Northwest. Fitzhugh is Seattle's radio play-by-play announcer but will be moving over to the television side for one night while regular TV announcer John Forslund works the national broadcasts for Vegas and Colorado on TNT. 

Seattle senior vice president of marketing and communications Katie Townsend said the team had planned for Forslund to miss a small number of games for national broadcast duties during the season and have Fitzhugh step in. She said having Fitzhugh and Brown team up during Black History Month adds even more significance. 

"We are fortunate to have an incredibly talented broadcast team. Everett and JT moved into NHL broadcasting this season, worked hard and have made an immediate connection with our fans," Townsend said.

Fitzhugh was Seattle's first broadcast hire in the summer of 2020 after working in the ECHL. 

Brown retired after playing parts of seven seasons with Tampa Bay, Anaheim and Minnesota. He last played during the 2018-19 season.

This story was originally published by Alex Livingston of Newsy, and the Associated Press contributed.

It was the kind of jaw-dropping performance the crowd had never seen.

Zeb Powell stole the show at the 2020 X Games in Aspen, Colorado, jumping and flipping his way right into fans' hearts and a first-place win.

But here's the thing, the rookie clutching the gold medal didn't even like snowboarding the first time he tried it.

"My teacher was mean, and she set me up backward. None of it was appealing to me," Powell tells Newsy. 

For a while, he turned to skateboard, but his raw talent on the snow could not be ignored.

"He's always been flipping and turning, and he's always been on a board or something that will let him fly through the air," Valerie Powell, Zeb's mother, said. 

His parents, who adopted him at five weeks old, started sending him from his North Carolina home to a snowboarding camp in Colorado. Powell stood out in a sport that traditionally is as white as snow.

Newsy's Clayton Sandell: How many people were there doing this that looks like you?

Powell: There might have been one other black person on the mountain.

Sandell: You ever feel unwelcome in this sport?

Powell: Luckily, like, no. I don't really have anything bad to say about anyone.

But it isn't just that Zeb Powell is one of the few black faces on the slopes. Sports commentator Selema Masekela has watched generations of snowboarders over three decades. He says the 22-year-old has game-changing skills he's never seen before.

"He's a jazz musician on a snowboard. He improvises.  It's like, oh, this is a type of snowboarding, an ability and an interpretation of the thing that is crazy, and so artistic and spontaneous, but highly athletic. And also, in the body of a young black kid who grew up in North Carolina?" sports commentator Selema Masekela tells Newsy. 

Powell's first appearance at the X Games changed everything. He gained a ton of new followers and support on social media. Fans who maybe, for the first time, saw themselves.

"I heard a lot of them say they didn't even know that black people snowboarded, which is crazy. I mean, just coming from me, like I never even thought about it like that," Powell explained.  

Powell is still getting used to all the attention and all the selfies.

Sandell: What's it like being recognized like that? 

Powel: That's always crazy. I just kind of fully embrace it try to talk to everyone.

But one thing he's sure of, he's using his new visibility to help make snowboarding much more diverse.

"I think the culture is just it's so fun to be around. I love it. I think a lot of people will love it," Powell says. 

Inviting as many as he can to a sport that historically hasn't been very inviting.

"Recreating and luxuriating in the outdoors was sort of one of the last safe spaces that were built mostly specifically for white people on the back end of segregation in this country.  And so, it's going to take a very long time for those things to change," Masekela explains further. 

Powell didn't place at this year's X Games, but his mom says what's important is that her son knows he has a gift.

"And you got to use it right and stay humble and give back, and so far, that's what he's done, which makes me extremely proud. Prouder than any medal he could ever win," Valerie Powell says of her son. 

"It's exciting because he really does have an opportunity to be so much bigger than then snowboarding and to be like an icon for the sport in opening up accessibility and possibility to what the slopes can look like. It's like, you know, growing up watching Jordan or Kobe or Serena, and then to see it come along, in in a young Black man in America is just it just wildly powerful," Masekela says. 

For now, Powell says he'll be spreading the word through the type of videos he makes with his friends, hot-dogging down the slopes and dropping into concrete canyons, making sure that even though he's one of the few Black pro snowboarders, Zeb Powell is not going to be the last.

Clayton Sandell at Newsy first reported this story.

According to a survey from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, as of 2020, African Americans accounted for 13% of the overall local TV news workforce.

One woman and accomplished journalist is paving the way for more young Black women to enter the industry she loves. Reporter Linnie Supall shares her story. 

"Over 43 years, I think I've done it all," Daphne Taylor says, walking down memory lane.

"Interviewing Oprah, covering Kamala Harris, I've covered President Obama four times."

She's celebrating more than four decades as an accomplished journalist, and her relentless fight to find success. 

"It hasn't been easy because I never made a lot of money, but I have always loved what I did," Taylor explains. 

From television to print and radio, Daphne Taylor's passion for journalism is multi-faceted — so much so, that she paved the way for others. 

"I came back to Riviera Beach and I started teaching broadcast journalism to at-risk teen girls," says Taylor.  

In 1998 Taylor launched a mentorship program introducing teenage girls to the world of broadcasting. 

"We called ourselves WGRL, where girls come first."

For nearly 10 years, WGRL cut attention across south Florida, traveling to Miami and Fort Lauderdale, to meet the latest stars and prominent leaders in town. 

"From Martin Luther King III, to Rosie O'Donnell, Alicia Keys (...) One of my former students recently told me that she would not be where she is today, had it not been for myself," Taylor recalls. 

"When you see you've made a difference, it makes a difference," she adds. 

Taylor is still writing front page headlines, acutely aware of the racial barriers that still remain. 

"Getting rid of racial injustice is going to still take more time, but we can get through it and we will get through it," Taylor says.

"All of us have a responsibility to do our best to make this world a better place. Never give up on your dream. It's never too late. Never too late."

This story was first reported by Linnie Supall and Natalie Allen at Newsy.