Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington forged one of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans to create schools throughout the nation for Black children who had no access to publicly funded education. From 1912 to 1937, the Rosenwald schools program built 5,357 schools, shops, and teacher’s homes across fifteen Southern and border states. For the first comprehensive photographic account of the Rosenwald Schools program, Andrew Feiler drove more than 25,000 miles and photographed 105 schools in all fifteen of the program states. The exhibition features twenty-three photographs of interiors and exteriors, schools restored and yet-to-be restored, and portraits of people with compelling connections to these schools.
The exhibition is derived from Feiler’s book, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America, which includes eighty-five duotone images and an introduction by the late Congressman John Lewis, who attended a Rosenwald school in Alabama.