Rosenwald Fellows: Resisting Oppression, Promoting Excellence

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

The Julius Rosenwald Fund was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald, a son of German Jewish immigrants who had made a fortune as part owner of the retailing powerhouse Sears, Roebuck and Company. The Fund initially concentrated on partnering with rural African American communities in the South to build schoolhouses. In 1928 the focus shifted with the Fund’s new president, Edwin Embree, proposing a fellowship program of grants to provide opportunities for advanced study, travel or support for creative work to individuals of exceptional ability and promise, many of whom faced racial barriers limiting the opportunities open to them. Between 1928 and 1948 the Rosenwald Fund made financial awards to nearly 900 individuals, two-thirds of whom were African American, many of whom went on to exceptional careers. Among them were Marian Anderson, James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Charles Drew, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Jacob Lawrence, and Ralph Bunche. There were many more!

The results of this program were remarkable. A large number of fellows became nationally and even internationally known for their achievements in more than 40 widely diverse fields of endeavor from scholarship to artistic creation to diplomacy. These fellows became a solid generation of achievers across multiple disciplines, well positioned to refute notions of African American inferiority and to encourage achievement in others. Many of them consciously devoted their careers to work that grappled with the troubled dynamics of American race relations and sought to open the doors of opportunity to others. The fellows’ accomplishments led to much enlarged participation of African Americans of succeeding generations in academia, the arts, medicine, the corporate world and government.

Sub Unit

• 108th ASALH Annual Conference

Chair

• Tyrone McKinley Freeman, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

Individual Presentations

• Rosenwald Fellows and the Hunger for Education - Robert Stanton, National Park Service (Ret)

• Rosenwald Fellows and the Study of Economics - Samuel Myers, Jr., University of Minnesota

• Rosenwald Fellows: Resisting Ooppression with Excellence - Stephanie Deutsch, Independent Scholar

Woodson Conference Fellow

• Damia Jones, North Carolina A&T State University

Zoom Meeting Host

• Grand Ballroom 4 User, ASALH