Then and now: Rosenwald schools highlight legacy of educational inequality
On a recent afternoon, I viewed a stirring museum exhibition, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America.
The exhibit at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture tells the story of the Rosenwald schools built for Black children from 1912 to 1937 in the Jim Crow South. The schools were built as part of an educational initiative by Washington, a Black educator, and Rosenwald, a Jewish businessman and philanthropist. The schools’ impact on the nation was powerful, combating the educational disparities across the segregated South.
Rosenwald students thrived in an atmosphere of respect. They became scientists, architects, doctors, lawyers and future civil rights leaders like the late congressman John Lewis and Medgar Evers. A photo of a solemn Lewis posing in front of the desk in his congressional office captures the schools’ life-changing impact on the children who attended.
The dichotomy between images of the schools when they were new – spartan but immaculate, straight rows of desks filled with serious, formally dressed students – and the dereliction of the remaining schools, which mostly closed in the 1950s, is symbolic of the failed promise of educational equality in the Deep South. Award-winning photographer Andrew Feiler captured the black-and-white images of some of the 500 remaining Rosenwald school buildings as well as moving testimonies from the schools’ former students. The museum will host the exhibition to April 20, 2025.
Rosenwald school alumni include the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
Credit: Andrew Feiler
Elroy and Sophia Williams hold a portrait of Sophia’s grandparents, who donated land for a Rosenwald school.
Credit: Andrew Feiler
Students and teachers at Jefferson Jacob School in the 1920s.
Courtesy of The Filson Historical Society
A restored classroom at Pine Grove School in Richland County, South Carolina, open from 1923 to 1950.
Credit: Andrew Feiler
A marker for the site of Loachopoka School in Lee County, Alabama, the first Rosenwald school.
Credit: Andrew Feiler
A construction map of the Julius Rosenwald Fund schoolhouses.
Courtesy of Fisk University Archives
Ellie J. Dahmer is the widow of slain civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer Sr., and both attended Rosenwald schools.
Credit: Andrew FeilerSince viewing the exhibit, I have not stopped thinking about systemic racial inequality in education, particularly in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s focus states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. In fact, hours before I toured the exhibition, I finished writing an article about a Georgia school district’s failure to educate a Black student with dyslexia. While an SPLC lawsuit allowed the teen, Trinity, who could only read at a first-grade level, to finally receive the assistance she needed, the story is a haunting reminder that Black children frequently endure a subpar, unequal education.
It can be seen in deteriorating school buildings, outdated textbooks and a lack of teachers and enrichment programs such as drama, debate and band – a stark contrast to the well-equipped schools that are often home to largely white student populations.
The SPLC’s Only Young Once report series explores the racially disproportionate punishment of Black students that sends many into the school-to-prison pipeline. The report series has examined Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. The latest report, which examines Florida, is scheduled to publish later this month. Regardless of the state, however, the reports show a perverse formula that sets children of color up for failure.
Such injustices drive the work of the SPLC’s Democracy: Education and Youth litigation team. But it shouldn’t take an SPLC lawsuit for children of color to receive the education they legally and morally deserve. Much like the Rosenwald students from decades earlier, they just need a true opportunity for success.
Picture at top: Ellie J. Dahmer is the widow of slain civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer Sr., and both attended Rosenwald schools. The schools, built from 1912 to 1937 across the South, are the subject of an exhibit at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture through April 20, 2025. (Credit: Andrew Feiler)
