The National Civil Rights Museum debuted a new exhibit yesterday in honor of the Rosenwald schools, the schools that changed the educational landscape in the segregated South.
Temporarily on display until January 2, 2023, the exhibit features stories alongside pictures by photographer Andrew Feiler detailing the state of the schools in modern times. Out of about 4,978 original Rosenwald schools, only about 500 are estimated to have survived. Traveling more than 25,000 miles across the country, Feiler visited about 105 of these surviving schools for the exhibit.
To accompany his photographs, Feiler interviewed many community members, former students, former teachers, preservationists and more to create a more detailed narrative about the school’s history. Through the interviews, the exhibit tells the connections between the schools and historical events such as the Trail of Tears, the Great Migration and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
“There are economists at the federal reserve bank that have done five studies at Rosenwald Schools and what their analysis shows is that, prior to World War I there was a large and consistent Black-white educational gap in the South,” said Feiler per CBS This Morning. “That gap closes precipitously between World War I and World War II and the single greatest driver of that achievement are the Rosenwald Schools.”
From 1917 to 1932, Rosenwald schools continued to spread across the segregated South as products of a partnership between Booker T. Washington, an educator, author and Progressive Era reformer and Julius Rosenwald, a German-Jewish immigrant who worked as the head of retail company Sears, Roebuck and Company.
Their partnership started during a meeting coordinated by close friends during which Washington convinced Rosenwald to join the Tuskegee Institute, the HBCU he founded, as a member of the board of directors. As they continued to work together, they thought of ways to expand their philanthropic efforts and opened the first of the Rosenwald schools for Black children in the South.
Inspired by Washinton’s belief that education was the best way for Black Americans to escape oppression, the Rosenwald schools helped give the children a space to learn; prior to the construction of these two-room buildings split by a partition, most Black children were forced to learn in a church or a field.
As the schools continued to spread across the South, the initiative became more of a community effort as community members assisted in the building phase of the schools by offering labor and building materials. Community members also aided in keeping the schools running after Rosenwald helped jumpstart the schools by holding events such as bake sales and fish frys to raise money.
After thousands of school openings, the end of the Rosenwald schools came as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional in their landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education. Consolidating with schools, the structures began to close, leaving just the 500 original schools found today.
Graduates of the Rosenwald schools include writer Maya Angelou, Little Rock Nine member Carlotta Walls LaNier and civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis amongst others.
