Preservationists Strive to Save Schools Built of Altruism

The dusty floors and sagging walls of the old Mount Sinai Junior High School are a rickety reminder of a time when blacks were castoffs in the segregated South and one man tried to help.

The building is a “Rosenwald school,” named for Julius T. Rosenwald, the Chicago philanthropist who helped build Mount Sinai and more than 5,000 similar schools throughout the rural South with millions of dollars in donations in the early 1900s.

Located in 15 states, the schools--built at the suggestion of Tuskegee University founder Booker T. Washington -- provided an education for untold numbers of Southern blacks who might not have had one otherwise.

Nearly all the schools had closed by the 1960s as rural schools were consolidated and integration spread.

Many were razed, some were converted to homes, barns or community centers, and others were left to fall apart.

Today, former students and historic preservationists are working to save the remaining pieces of Rosenwald’s legacy after decades of neglect.

The nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation included Rosenwald schools on its list in June of the most endangered historic places in America, and state preservation agencies across the region are trying to locate the buildings in hopes of refurbishing at least some.

The most intense interest is among one-time students of the schools.

Mack Houser belongs to a group raising money to refurbish Mount Sinai, which operated from 1919 to 1967 about 20 miles north of Montgomery.

The school, which housed about 90 students in grades one through nine, is the last of six Rosenwald schools that were once in Autauga County.

Houser remembers sweating through the stifling Alabama heat when he attended Mount Sinai for about 10 years beginning in 1942. He gathered sticks to feed the school’s four potbellied stoves in the winter.

All but one of the stoves remain in the old four-classroom school, along with dozens of hardwood desks, the original piano and shelves full of books, including an English literature text dated 1926.

“It would have been much different without Rosenwald,” said Houser, standing in a classroom with 12-foot ceilings, thick plank paneling and a musty smell. Weeds snake inside through a hole in the siding.

“We had to memorize a lot of things: songs, history, pledges, some Scripture,” said Zenobia Faye Marshall, who graduated from the school in 1961. “We’ve got doctors, lawyers and all kinds of professional people who came from here.”

The early school had no electricity or plumbing, just big windows and outhouses.

Each school adjoined land for gardens, and all offered industrial education and home economics. Standard plans and color schemes were used.

Although Rosenwald schools are considered endangered in general, no one is sure how many still exist, said Hap Connors of the National Trust.

“The first step in the [restoration] process is to identify how many there are,” he said.

Of 389 Rosenwald schools built in Alabama, the state knows of fewer than 20 still standing. Of 25 built around Charlotte, N.C., only four remain. One is still used as a community center.

“I would be amazed if it were much above that in any state percentage-wise,” said Tom Hanchett, staff historian at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte.

The success of the schools’ design is making it harder for historians to identify true Rosenwald buildings--because about 11,000 schools for whites were constructed using the same blueprints.

The son of Jewish German immigrants, Rosenwald was president of Sears, Roebuck & Co. and helped build the chain into a retailing giant. He struck up a friendship with Washington and gave $25,000 in 1912 to help black colleges like Tuskegee, located in east Alabama.

Washington persuaded Rosenwald to let some of the money be used as grants for schools in rural black areas, many of which had no schools.

The donations continued and grew, and Rosenwald had given $4.2 million to help build about 5,300 schools by 1932. Rosenwald grants had to be matched by communities where schools were to be built, and blacks donated some $4.7 million.

“It’s important to note that black people gave more to build these schools than he did,” said Rosenwald’s grandson, Peter Ascoli of Chicago.

Local governments also gave money for the buildings, which were public schools. The problem was that white-controlled school boards rarely gave the schools more money once they opened, leaving them with old books and few resources.

“Over time, they were seriously second-rate,” said Hanchett, who is working on the Rosenwald preservation project with the National Trust.

Although some philanthropies shied away from giving money to educate Southern blacks for fear of offending whites, Ascoli said, Rosenwald was undeterred.

“He didn’t really care about that. He just felt he should go ahead,” Ascoli said.

There was other resistance, though. The Ku Klux Klan opposed construction of Rosenwald schools in some areas, and a school in Arkansas was burned down in a blaze allegedly set by klansmen, only to be rebuilt using brick.

“They didn’t have much luck,” said Peter Mansell, of the Historic Beaufort Foundation in Beaufort, S.C.

At Mount Sinai, organizers recently received a state grant of $18,600 to do additional restoration work. The roof and some window frames have already been replaced using earlier donations totaling about $20,000.

Houser would like to get a new coat of white paint on the old school and repair more windows. The school is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so any work must be historically accurate.