Black Activism in Education: A Counter-cultural Narrative of Rosenwald Schools in the South

• In Event: African Americans and the Struggle for Education

Abstract

Rosenwald Schools were a distinct body of schools built specifically for and by rural southern blacks in the early twentieth century. They sprang from a partnership between famed black educator Booker T. Washington and Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. Despite popular narratives, Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., did not build Rosenwald Schools for black people - nor did he completely fund them. Instead, Rosenwald provided small grants, initially of only $300, to jump start spending on black schools. This was not seed money. Blacks could only receive Rosenwald funding AFTER they raised funds that met or exceeded Rosenwald's gift, secured land for their new school, obtained supplies such as paint, brick or wood, rallied labor to build the schools, and garnered the support of local and state school officials.

The strict requirements of the Rosenwald School-Building Program positioned southern blacks as the central characters and activists in the Rosenwald School movement. Their grit and sacrifice produced over 5,000 public schools in fifteen southern states. These schools employed over 14,000 teachers and had the capacity to hold 600,000 students. James D. Anderson's "The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935" has argued that black schools in the early twentieth century were "part and parcel" of the subjugation of blacks. My work reveals that the intellectual design and social framework for Rosenwald Schools set them apart in important ways from other, segregated black schools of that era.

Author

• LeDatta Grimes, University Of Kentucky