"Restore, Renew, Rediscover Your Historic Neighborhood Schools!"

3rd Annual Preservation Week 2002 Photo-Essay Competition

Wood, brick, and mortar are some of the items that went into the building of the Rosenwald Schools.

On August 12, 1864 in Springfield, Illinois Julius Rosenwald was born. As a young white boy he believed that he wanted to be someone famous so that people would remember him forever. As he grew up, the Rosenwald family moved into Abraham Lincoln's former home; therefore they became close friends. Living one block away, they often visited with each other. As Rosenwald got older, Lincoln shared with him the ways of the world and instructed him to always follow his dreams.

Later, Rosenwald shared his dreams with Lincoln to build schools for African-Americans so that they too could be educated. After the Civil War and his best friend, President Lincoln, was assassinated Rosenwald began making his dreams come true. As he was living out his dreams, he discovered that many people did not want him to support funding education for African-Americans. People were afraid that they would become too educated. He fought hard and long for what he believed. He began funding his first schools with his family's money and later other donated what they could. To accomplish his goal, Rosenwald agreed to pay one-third of the cost of building schools in the rural southern communities where strong financial and social commitment existed for the education of African-Americans. Next he started drawing and measuring how he wanted the schools to be built. He wanted them to be better than the schools he attended. After he decided on the design, he then picked the places where he wanted them to be located. With the efforts of the Tuskegee Institute and the General Education Board, he built schools in Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

In 1932, by the time of his death, Rosenwald had helped in constructing 5,357 public schools. After Rosenwald's death, Booker T. Washington continued with the project on a larger scale. The first Rosenwald School in Kentucky was built in 1917. There were 158 African-American schools built in Kentucky. One of the schools was located in Lebanon, Kentucky. The Lebanon School was built in 1930-1931. The total cost of the Lebanon School was $18,400. The school had a library and a gymnasium.

My grandmother attended the Lebanon School. She walked 1 _ miles to catch the bus which then took her to school. She said that school building was really big, but the class size was small. The grade levels ranged from 1st grade to the 12th grade. The students who attended the School came from miles around. They came as far away as from Springfield, Perryville, and East Texas. My grandmother said she was always happy to go to school because she learned so much. She could go home and teach her sisters what she had learned. While attending the Lebanon School, her role model was her Principal, Mrs. Smith. "Mrs. Smith was a strict disciplinary. Whenever she walked into a room she commanded respect." My grandmother also shared with me of how grateful she was to be able to attend the Lebanon School. "If it were not for the Rosenwald School I would not have received an education. The nearest school for blacks was located in Frankfort Kentucky and my mother refused to allow me to live so far away from home." Today the Lebanon School which is now called the Cedars of Lebanon is a Nursing Home to the elderly.

Although it no longer serves as a school, it still provides for a much needed service in our community. We are fortunate that this building has been preserved because it opened the door for educating African-Americans today and reminds us of our heritage of yesterday.

The Rosenwald Schools were not only built with wood, brick, and mortar but they were built in part with a lot of hard work and dedication. They were built to promote the well being of mankind. All in all, his efforts educated over 500,000 students in the South.

This essay and photograph(s) are the property of Preservation Kentucky, Inc. and Kentucky Heritage Council and that any use of the photo or essay must be approved by PK and KHC.