The Julius Rosenwald Fund: Exploring Local Histories of African American Education Tamara Butler 30 November 2010 The Ohio State University Running Head: JULIUS ROSENWALD FUND 2 Section I: Overview Critical Literacy in the History Classroom Through this unit, students and teachers can employ the tenets of critical literacy in order to enrich their knowledge of history and education within a local context. According to literacy scholar Ernest Morrell (2008), critical literacy requires students to engage with historical primary documents in order to understand how knowledge is socially- constructed and challenge the ideological hegemony maintained by textbooks, which are often dilute, summarize or omit important historical events and documents. For example, in her work within Hawaiian education, Julie Kaomea (2006) invests in unearthing indigenous Hawaiian history, culture, identity and knowledge. Through her “countergenealogy” methodology (p.333), she suggests ways in which History textbooks have (a) erased the significant contributions of women to Hawaiian history and (b) promoted problematic narratives, which coincide with the tourism industry’s narratives about Hawaiian peoples as ‘happy natives.’ In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen (1995) reveals and challenges the fallacies that pervade American History textbooks. When students encounter the work of Kaomea (2006), Loewen (1995) and similar scholars, in conjunction with primary documents, they come to understand how “textbooks can be just as ideologically oppressive as other state-sanctioned texts” (Morrell, 2008, p.41). Therefore, in order for students to become critically literate citizens and eventually “critical social historians” (Morrell, 2008, p.41), they must be able to engage with contemporary and original historical texts. Local History of Black Education during the 1920s-1930s Through this unit, students become critical social historians, who uncover and explore the intricate links between racial/ethnic identity, race relations, and legislation in the politics of education. The activities are designed to help students and teachers understand the intricacies of white, black and Jewish relations in the development of African American education in the early to mid-twentieth century. In the larger construction of African American/American history, slavery, Reconstruction, segregation and the Great Depression are central eras in American and state History textbooks, but little to no room is granted for the discussion of inter- and intra-racial relationships and their impact on education. Interactions between Black and Jewish communities have historically been wrought with an array of emotions ranging from distrust to affection (West 1993). During the 1920s, members in both communities lived in segregated neighborhoods and faced economic hardships, which were exacerbated by the Great Depression. During the 1920s, however, the communities came to work within the ebb and flow of mixed emotions in order to provide African American children with an opportunity for Running Head: JULIUS ROSENWALD FUND 3 social and financial mobility—through education. Although some viewed segregation as negative, African Americans, such as Booker T. Washington, and Jewish Americans, such as Julius Rosenwald, saw the separation as opportunities to reconstruct the educational system. Jewish Philanthropy and Black Education African Americans viewed education as the path toward collective social mobility, citizenship, and self- sufficiency, which pervades the history of African American education. During the 1920s and 30s, African Americans’ path to education was interrupted by economic hardships, exacerbated by the Great Depression and segregation legislature, which denied them access to resources and equitable employment, housing, and education. In an effort to educate themselves and their children, African American community members often turned to Northern philanthropic organizations and philanthropists for funds to construct/revitalize schools. As a result, white and/or Jewish males funded various Southern educational institutions for Blacks—from K-12 public schools to private schools for teacher education. Such an endeavor, Northern funding for Southern schools, marked the beginning of an ongoing struggle for ideological control of a disenfranchised population—African Americans living in the South. History of Julius Rosenwald In October 1917, the Rosenwald Fund was incorporated and was under the control of its founder, Julius Rosenwald, until 1928. From 1917 to 1927, the expenditures were over $4.7 million between school building programs, charities and institutions. Rosenwald believed that a “philanthropic foundation had to have a policy forming body made up of men and women of wide interests and knowledge [and] no direct connection with the founder’s fortune” (Embree & Waxman 1949, p.23). The Fund concentrated on African American education, health, fellowships and race relations. By 1932, when the school building program ended, the Fund used over $28 million to help build 5,000 public schools, shops and homes for teachers in over 800 counties in 15 southern states. Running Head: JULIUS ROSENWALD FUND 4 Northern Philanthropy and Southern Education: Emergence of Rosenwald Schools Jewish philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck and Company Julius Rosenwald is an omnipresent name in the history of African American education in the Southern United States. Rosenwald’s financial contributions aided in the construction of numerous primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools for African Americans. Rosenwald consulted African-American educator and founder of Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington when deciding which programs and/or institutions he should make donations toward. Due to federal and state legislation that maintained segregation, the United States’ federal government offered limited funding in post-secondary education for Black Americans. As a result, Rosenwald also made contributions to private institutions of higher learning for African Americans, such as Dillard University in Louisiana, Fisk University in Tennessee, and the Atlanta University Center located in Georgia (Adams 1999). From 1914 to 1932, Rosenwald personally invested $4 million into Black education and solicited other wealthy Jewish patrons to invest similarly. Since ninety-five percent of the counties in South Carolina, ninety percent in Alabama, seventy-five percent in Virginia and over eighty-six percent in Louisiana, Maryland and North Carolina contained primary and secondary schools funded by Rosenwald, by the mid 1930s, one-fourth of the Black population in the southern United States were educated in a school established by his fund (Friedman 1995). Unearthing Rosenwald’s History in South Carolina The year 1919 proved to be pivotal in the history of African Americans living in South Carolina. In “Partners in Progress”, Bob Gorman and Lois Stickell (2002) recount the efforts of Joseph B. Felton, whose endeavors brought financial assistance from the Rosenwald Fund to the Palmetto State. In 1919, Felton, a white male who served as the “superintendent of education” in Anderson county, replaced J.H. Brannon as the “State Agent for Negro Schools,” visiting not only black schools not in South Carolina, but also black and white schools in Louisiana and Tennessee (pp.15-16). By the end of the year, he commented that “the furnishings of the school buildings for the colored children in South Carolina could not be worse…” and proposed for the construction of fifty new Rosenwald buildings. For the next 28 years, Felton served as the State Agent for Negro Schools and worked with Black and White community members to raise additional funds and to continue advocating for equitable education in Black communities. Through community efforts and funding, 500 Rosenwald schools were built in the state of South Carolina by time the Fund’s school building program ended in 1932. Donating to Divide? Debates About the Intentions of the Rosenwald Fund Running Head: JULIUS ROSENWALD FUND 5 Though the Rosenwald Fund supplemented African Americans educational opportunities, via school buildings and fellowships, historians continue to debate whether the distribution among the areas of study reflects segregation and discriminatory values. Between 1928 and 1948, the Fund also awarded over $1.8 million in fellowships, in which 999 of the 1,537 were awarded to Black Americans in selected fields of study. For example, of the 35 awarded for mental and social sciences, only one was granted to a Black recipient; while all 56 of the grants for development of personnel in “Negro health” was awarded to Blacks. Awards for Blacks helped to improve the leadership in “Negro institutions—universities, hospitals, businesses, the press and social agencies” (Embree and Waxman 1949, p.154). However, awards to White recipients improved personnel in Southern schools and developed more effective leadership for dealing with “Southern problems.” The top three areas of interest for Black fellows were education, language/literature and agriculture, while White fellows were more concerned with sociology, rural education and history. Historians and educators continue to debate whether or not education in southern schools funded by Northern philanthropists adequately prepared African Americans for leadership, politics and business, or life in Northern cities. Although education proved to be important, housing served as another key to social mobilization.