Rosenwald School House - Hurt, Virginia

The Hurt School was a one-teacher Rosenwald School dating to 1925

The concept of universal public education took root in Virginia with the new Virginia constitution of 1869 that provided for a universal, but segregated system of public education.

Prior to this, schools were either private institutions or sponsored by religious organizations and were not available to most children in Virginia, especially African-American children. The provisions, however, were far from adequate.

During Reconstruction, former slaves actively pursued universal education, establishing hundreds of schools throughout the South. 

They viewed literacy and formal education as a path to liberation and freedom. The Julius Rosenwald Fund sought to use private money to leverage available public funds in order to improve the education and lives of African-Americans in the South. 

Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund

Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) was the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and a benefactor of African American causes. In 1917, he established the Julius Rosenwald Fund, the chief purpose of which was to improve the education for African Americans. Augmented by local taxes and private gifts, the fund paid for the construction of more than 5,000 schools in 15 southern states. Among other causes he supported, he established the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago (1929), contributed heavily to the University of Chicago, and founded dental infirmaries in the public schools. Rosenwald was heavily influenced by Booker T. Washington and his work at the Tuskegee Institute, and believed in the importance of industrial training and education for blacks in the rural South. Initially, the Rosenwald program contributed to the construction of schools only in Alabama. Eventually, the scope of the Rosenwald Fund expanded to fund schools throughout the South. Rosenwald also funded Carter G. Woodson’s publication Journal of Negro History and was a trustee of Tuskegee Institute from 1912 until his death in 1932.

The Julius Rosenwald Fund traces its origins to May 1911, when Rosenwald first met Booker T. Washington. Rosenwald, aware of Washington’s work, hosted a luncheon in Chicago for him, with the aim of raising funds for Tuskegee. During that meeting, the two men found they shared many beliefs. The two men shared the belief that individuals were better off starting life without too many advantages. Both men wanted to enable institutions to help people raise themselves from poverty, so long as that assistance could be administered without destroying a person’s self-reliance. Both understood and had lived with the effects of racial and ethnic prejudice.