REMEMBERING
HOLLY SPRINGS ROSENWALD SCHOOL

THE HISTORY OF ROSENWALD SCHOOLS

In the early 1900s, Jim Crow laws required for Black and White Americans to be separated. Most notably, this affected the education quality of Black children in southern states. With inadequate resources, buildings, and support, in the time before the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court cases, Black communities needed to band together to give their children brighter futures. However, this venture also required financial support. Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish businessman and philanthropist from Illinois, would partner with prominent civil rights activist Booker T. Washington to help build schools in rural communities by creating the Rosenwald Fund. To show their dedication, Rosenwald schools were also partially funded by the communities themselves. As more schools were built in fifteen states across the country, they soon became colloquially known as “Rosenwald Schools.” Between 1912 and 1932 over 5,300 Rosenwald Schools were built across the south, with 800 in North Carolina. In the early 1930s, a third of Black southern children attended a Rosenwald School. While the Rosenwald Fund ended in the 1940s and the need for the schools ceased with desegregation initiatives, Rosenwald schools served as the pride of Black communities where a generation of Black Americans were introduced to the world of learning. 

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Today, more Americans are learning of Rosenwald’s philanthropy and the schools that shaped Black communities. Efforts to remember, protect, and honor the remaining school buildings ensure the memory of the Rosenwald Schools will last well beyond their prime.