Remembering Julius Rosenwald, a White Jewish pioneer of African-American education

During the early 20th century, business magnate Julius Rosenwald demonstrated the Biblical values of his Jewish faith—especially tzedakah (charity), mishpat (justice), and tikkun olam (repair of the world)—through his leadership in the creation of the Rosenwald Schools. 

These institutions, organized by Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute and funded by Rosenwald, were established to provide adequate education to Black Americans prevented from accessing public schools throughout the segregated South. Rosenwald worked tirelessly to ensure that the rights of all Americans were respected

All Americans benefit from learning about both our insidious history of discrimination and the hard-won efforts to which we owe our present state of liberty. As the visceral memory of Jim Crow fades from our collective memory, a subtle yet unique danger appears. Many of the freedoms which we currently enjoy were bitterly contested, and only continue to enjoy broad respect because of individual heroism and advocacy. The imperative for successive generations to remember the past to protect the present can vanish in a state of comfort, and the ruinous effects of such moral laxity are thoroughly unacceptable. 

As a Catholic, I admire Pope Benedict XVI’s assertion that “love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel.” The exhortation in the Hebrew Bible to love one’s neighbor—a moral teaching cherished by Christians, Jews, and secular persons alike—requires all people to take responsibility for the state of one’s community. If the community fails to recall its past failings, it widens the possibility for such conflict to arise again in the future.

To wit, the poverty and widespread lack of opportunity preceding the creation of the Rosenwald Schools largely resulted from general apathy towards the protection of Black civil rights. At first, Reconstruction efforts to incorporate African Americans into the life of the nation after emancipation were extremely successful. South Carolina’s majority-Black state legislature instituted the first public schools, Mississippi and Louisiana both had well-respected Black senators, and the Freedmen's Bureau oversaw the supply of food, medicine, and other welfare services to formerly enslaved persons in order to eradicate poverty in this community. 

Despite these early successes, Reconstruction was eventually abandoned and the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision in 1896 made racially segregated public institutions the law of the land. Consequently, millions of Black children were prevented from accessing the public schools to which they were legally entitled.

Undeterred by the overwhelming acceptance of disparate treatment towards Black Americans, Rosenwald used the fortune he accrued as a chief executive for Sears to address the pervasive racial discrimination. His concern for African-Americans was heavily influenced by his Judaism and the horrors of European antisemitism, which he viewed as analogous to the experience of African Americans. 

He became personally interested in Booker T. Washington after reading his biography during the summer of 1910, and the two quickly began a friendship which featured prominently in the effort to unravel segregation. Rosenwald provided seed funding that eventually constructed 5,300 schools in areas where Black children had little or no access to education. Before the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, almost 30% of Black students in the South were educated in a Rosenwald School. 

These institutions fundamentally changed the trajectory of the country. Luminaries such as Maya Angelou, Pauli Murray, Medgar Evers, and John Lewis all received instruction in schools created by Rosenwald’s largesse. He also helped fund much of the litigation led by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to eventually destroy the legal principle of “separate but equal” for good. 

Despite Rosenwald's incredible accomplishments, the remains of the schools bearing his name have fallen into disrepair, and his legacy continues to fade from our collective cultural memory. This is clearly unacceptable.

A National Historic Park Campaign, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation are pushing for the designation of a national park to honor his life’s work. The current congressional proposal seeks to create a center in Chicago providing visitors with information about Rosenwald’s life while also providing funds to preserve a few of the remaining schools in the South. Such a park would act as a buttress against his erasure from history. 

As a Black Catholic man deeply motivated by the example of those who honored Jesus’ injunction to serve the “least of these,” I heartily encourage all Americans to support this effort and call on their congressional representatives to support the creation of this national park. As we strive to create a more perfect union by preserving these important vestiges of the past, we harken to the wisdom of the prophet Joel, who instructs us: “Tell your children about it in the years to come, and let your children tell their children. Pass the story down from generation to generation.” 

Alexander Walton is an honors graduate of Morehouse College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy. He is currently a Master of Arts candidate at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

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