Julius Rosenwald Fund Builds 5,000 Schools for Black Children Excluded from Public Funding

The Julius Rosenwald Fund, created by Sears Roebuck founder Julius Rosenwald in collaboration with Booker T. Washington, funded the construction of 5,357 rural Black schools across 15 Southern states between 1912 and 1932. Rosenwald schools educated an estimated 663,000 Black children per year by the 1920s. The funding model required matching contributions from local Black communities — who raised $4.7 million from their own impoverished resources — and from state and county governments who were shamed into contributing. Many of these schools were the first brick buildings Black families in their counties had ever been allowed to enter.