Ruby Bridges Integrating The William Franz Public School in New Orleans

“The Problem We All Live With,” Norman Rockwell, 1963 Oil on canvas, 36” x 58” Illustration for “Look,” January 14, 1964

From PBS: In November 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges Hall became the first African American child to desegregate an elementary school. Although she only lived a few blocks from the William Frantz Elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Marshals had to escort Ruby because of angry segregationist mobs that gathered in front of the school. For an entire year, she was the only student in her class since white parents pulled their children from the school in protest. She wrote about her experiences in her book THROUGH MY EYES.

Protesters gather at William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana to protest desegregation in schools.

ONE YEAR IN AN ALL-BLACK SCHOOL

When it was time for me to start kindergarten, I went to the Johnson Lockett Elementary School. My segregated school was fairly far from my house, but I had lots of company for the long walk. All the kids on my block went to Johnson Lockett.

What I didn't know in kindergarten was that a federal court in New Orleans was about to force two white public schools to admit black students. The plan was to integrate only the first grade for that year. Then, every year after that, the incoming first grade would also be integrated.

In the late spring of my year at Johnson Lockett, the city school board began testing black kindergartners. They wanted to find out which children should be sent to the white schools. I took the test. I was only five, and I'm sure I didn't have any idea why I was taking it. Still, I remember that day. I remember getting dressed up and riding uptown on the bus with my mother, and sitting in an enormous room in the school board building along with about a hundred other black kids, all waiting to be tested.

Apparently the test was difficult, and I've been told that it was set up so that kids would have a hard time passing. If all the black children had failed, the white school board might have had a way to keep the schools segregated for a while longer.

Several people from the NAACP came to the house in the summer. They told my parents that I was one of just a few black children to pass the school board test, and that I had been chosen to attend one of the white schools, William Frantz Public School. They said it was a better school and closer to my home than the one I had been attending. They said I had the right to go to the closest school in my district. They pressured my parents and made a lot of promises. They said my going to William Frantz would help me, my brothers, my sisters, and other black children in the future. We would receive a better education which would give us better opportunities as adults.

Lucille, my mother, was convinced that no harm would come to us. She thought that the opportunity for me to get the best education possible was worth the risk, and she finally convinced my father.

MY MOTHER BREAKS THE NEWS

When September came that year, I didn't start first grade at William Frantz. The lawmakers in the state capital, Baton Rouge, had found a way to slow down integration, so I was sent back to my old school.

All through the summer and early fall, the state legislatures fought the federal court. They passed twenty-eight new anti-integration laws.

The federal court, led by Federal District Court Judge J. Skelly Wright, unyielding in his commitment to upholding the law of the land and his dedication to equal opportunity for all Americans, would block the segregationists again and again.

The anger all across New Orleans convinced Judge Wright that things might grow violent. He asked the U.S. government rush federal marshals to New Orleans to protect the black first graders. There were four of us in all. There was a fifth girl originally, but her parents decided at the last minute not to transfer her. Three of the remaining children, all girls, were to go to a school named McDonogh. I was the fourth child. I was going to integrate William Frantz Public School, and I was going alone.

On Sunday, November 13, my mother told me I would start at a new school the next day. She hinted there could be something unusual about it, but she didn't explain. "There might be a lot of people outside the school," she said. "But you don¹t need to be afraid. I'll be with you."

NOVEMBER 24, 1960

My mother took special care getting me ready for school. When somebody knocked on my door that morning, my mother expected to see people from the NAACP. Instead, she saw four serious-looking white men, dressed in suits and wearing armbands. They were U.S. federal marshals. They had come to drive us to school and stay with us all day. I learned later they were carrying guns.

"Federal Marshal Wallace Downs rides in auto with wide-eyed girl, Gail Etienne, to McDonogh 19 school in New Orleans, November 14, 1960. The first-grader was one of four entered in two previously all-white schools in the city. "

I remember climbing into the back seat of the marshals' car with my mother, but I don't remember feeling frightened. William Frantz Public School was only five blocks away, so one of the marshals in the front seat told my mother right away we should do when we got there.

"Let us get out of the car first," the marshal said. "Then you'll get out, and the four of us will surround you and your daughter. We'll walk up to the door together. Just walk straight ahead, and don't look back."

I remember looking out of the car as we pulled up to the Frantz school. There were barricades and people shouting and policemen everywhere.

As we walked through the crowd, I didn't see any faces. I guess that's because I wasn't very tall and I was surrounded by the marshals. People yelled and threw things. I could see the school building, and it looked bigger and nicer than my old school. When we climbed the high steps to the front door, there were policemen in uniforms at the top. The policemen at the door and the crowd behind us made me think this was an important place.

THE FIRST DAY AT WILLIAM FRANTZ

All day long, white parents rushed into the office. They were upset. They were arguing and pointing at us. When they took their children to school that morning, the parents hadn't been sure whether William Frantz would be integrated that day or not. After my mother and I arrived, they ran into classrooms and dragged their children out of school. From behind the windows in the office, all I saw was confusion. I told myself that this must be the way it is in a big school.

That whole first day, my mother and I just sat and waited. We didn't talk to anybody. I remember watching a big, round clock on the wall. When it was 3:00 and time to go home, I was glad.

When we left school that first day, the crowd outside was even bigger and louder than it had been in the morning. There were reporters everywhere. I guess the police couldn't keep them behind the barricades. It seemed to take us along time to get to the marshals' car.

Later on I learned there had been protestors in front of the two integrated schools the whole day. They wanted to be sure white parents would boycott the school and not let their children attend. Groups of high school boys, joining the protestors, paraded up and down the street and sang new verses to old hymns. Their favorite was "Battle Hymn of the Republic," in which they changed the chorus to "Glory, glory, segregation, the South will rise again." Many of the boys carried signs and said awful things, but most of all I remember seeing a black doll in a coffin, which frightened me more than anything else.

MY FIRST WHITE TEACHER

On the second day, my mother and I drove to school with the marshals. The crowd outside the building was ready. Racists spat at us and shouted things like "Go home, nigger," and "No niggers allowed here." One woman screamed at me, "I'm going to poison you. I'll find a way." She made the same threat every morning.

I tried not to pay attention. When we finally got into the building, my new teacher was there to meet us. Her name was Mrs. Henry.

Mrs. Henry took us into a classroom and said to have a seat. When I looked around, the room was empty. There were rows of desks, but no children. I thought we were too early, but Mrs. Henry said we were right on time. My mother sat down at the back of the room. I took a seat up front, and Mrs. Henry began to teach.

I spent the whole first day with Mrs. Henry in the classroom. I wasn't allowed to have lunch in the cafeteria or go outside for recess, so we just stayed in our room. The marshals sat outside. If I had to go to the bathroom, the marshals walked me down the hall.

I HAVE TROUBLE EATING AND SLEEPING

There were times that winter when I did show stress. Nightmares would come, and I would get up and go wake my mother for comfort.

My mother would raise herself up in bed. "Did you say your prayers before you went to sleep?" she would ask.

If I hadn't, Mama would say, "Honey, that's why you're having a bad dream. Go back now, and say your prayers."

I would do as she said, and then I would sleep. Somehow it always worked.

Another problem that year was lunchtime at school. I often ate in the classroom by myself while Mrs. Henry took her lunch break with other teachers. The marshals sat outside while I opened up my lunch box. As time went on I wouldn't eat. First I blamed it on the fact that my other fixed too many peanut butter sandwiches. Then I began to wish and wish that I could go the cafeteria. . . I was convinced that kids were there. I began hiding my uneaten sandwiches in a storage cabinet in the classroom. In my magical way of thinking, not eating lunch would somehow get me to the cafeteria.

When roaches and mice began to appear in the room, a janitor discovered my old sandwiches. She [Mrs. Henry] was just sorry there were so many days when I hadn't eaten. After that she usually ate with me so I wouldn't be lonely.

THE END OF FIRST GRADE

Near at the end of the year, Mrs. Henry and I finally had company. A few white children began coming back to school, and I got an opportunity to visit with them once or twice. Even though these children were white, I still knew nothing about racism or integration. I had picked up bits and pieces over the months from being around adults and hearing them talk, but nothing was clear to me. The light dawned one day when a little boy refused to play with me.

"I can't play with you," the boy said. "My mama said not to because you're a nigger."

At that moment, it all made sense to me. I finally realized that everything had happened because I was black. I remember feeling a little stunned. It was all about the color of my skin. I wasn't angry at the boy, because I understood. His mother had told him not to play with me, and he was obeying her. I would have done the same thing. If my mama said not to do something, I didn't do it.

Ruby Bridges Hall and her former elementary school teacher Barbara Henry

The next thing I knew, it was June. That incredible year was over. Oddly enough, it ended quietly. I don't remember any special good-byes as I headed off for summer vacation. I was sorry to leave Mrs. Henry, but I somehow thought she would be my teacher again in the fall and forever. (source: PBS)

The Clinton School Lecture Series Presents Ruby Bridges 9-20-11

The Desegregation of Clinton, Tennessee

School Integration in Clinton, Tennessee

In 1956, Clinton High School in Clinton, Anderson County, Tennessee, was set to be the first high school in the South to be integrated after the Brown decision. Integration was progressing smoothly until John Kasper, leader of the White Citizens Council and a staunch segregationist, came to town. Protests and riots ensued from that day until early in December, when several white citizens escorted the African American students to class, as shown here. One of the escorts was badly beaten afterwards. As a result of the episode the school was closed on December 4, but reopened six days later without incident.

The Desegregation of Clinton, Tennessee

From PBS's History of Jim Crow, "The Desegregation of Clinton Senior High School: Trial and Triumph," by Clinton Beauchamp and Amanda Turner: In the early 1950s, Clinton, Tennessee, was the epitome of a typical southern small town--quiet, friendly, simple, and segregated. In 1956, however, violence over the desegregation of Clinton High School would rock this town to the core and leave an important legacy for years to come.

The trials began with a groundbreaking lawsuit, McSwain v. Anderson County. In 1950, five Negro children and their parents, backed by the NAACP, filed suit against the Anderson County Board of Education to gain entrance into Clinton High School. At that time, the law of Anderson County and the law of the State of Tennessee not only allowed but also required segregation in State high schools, and Negro students in Clinton were designated to attend either Rockwood High School in Rockwood or Austin High School in Knoxville. Presiding Judge Robert L. Taylor of the Federal District Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, dismissed the case on the grounds that Anderson County was providing equal or better educational facilities to the Negro students. The decision was appealed but was suspended pending a decision by the Supreme Court in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case. On January 4, 1956, the final decree issued by Judge Taylor was "...that in Anderson County, as to high school students, segregation be ended by not later than the fall term of 1956."

The Desegregation of Clinton, Tennessee

The faculty and staff of Clinton High School began preparing for integration. For instance, students were assigned papers on the coming integration and involved in numerous class discussions. In addition, news of the school's impending integration was circulated in the local newspaper The Clinton Courier and announced at school assemblies and town meetings. A Clinton High student at that time, Jerry Shattuck, believes, "...the student body and the town of Clinton was pretty well aware of and prepared to accept the desegregation; I don't think they necessarily supported it, but, nevertheless, it was the law of the land and we were going to abide by it." Things progressed relatively smoothly throughout the summer.

On registration day, the 12 Negro students to attend Clinton High School signed up for classes with no trouble. It seemed that the integration might be implemented without any trouble, but the weekend before school was to begin, John Kasper came to town. Kasper was an ardent segregationist and leader of his own group, the White Citizens Council. He came into town and began to "stir up trouble." Kasper clearly stated his views on segregation in an article, "Segregation or Death" (Virginia Spectator, May, 1959), in which he stated, "The only defect with segregation as a national policy, as a policy of the government, is that it does not go far enough." Kasper would play a pivotal role in causing the problems in Clinton over the next few months and would be arrested several times.

Clinton, Tennessee

With the stage thus set, on Monday, August 26, 1956, Clinton High School made history by becoming the first public high school in the South to desegregate. On the first day of school, Kasper and a few other citizens he recruited to his cause began picketing outside the school but were quickly disbanded. According to Mr. Shattuck, "They were gone in five minutes because they were embarrassed: it was sort of an unnatural activity carrying pickets here in a small town like this. Nevertheless, there was a big press contingent here that morning, so, by the time the afternoon newspapers came out or the evening television shows came on, it was all about this big protest in Clinton, Tennessee, over desegregation. Well, the great protest was five people carrying signs for five minutes; but, in my opinion, the press misrepresented what happened. The next morning, there were 15 people carrying pickets." The numbers kept increasing, and, by Thursday, the town was inundated with hundreds of outsiders "going up and down the streets and generally raising Cain." It soon became apparent that Clinton's two-man police force was woefully inadequate for the task at hand, so Mayor Lewallen was forced to organize a home guard of deputized citizens to supplement the police force and attempt to restore order to the town. The guard was also placed at the homes of prominent citizens who had been threatened by segregationists. Despite all this turmoil outside, classes went on relatively normally inside the school.

The Desegregation of Clinton, Tennessee

The atmosphere within the school environment at this time varies depending on whom you ask. Alfred Williams, a Negro student who attended the school during this time, says that there was a significant amount of harassment from the white students. "You couldn't possibly get anything learned or done, because you were constantly afraid that the white kid next to you was planning to kill you." Mr. Williams was eventually expelled after pulling a knife on a group of white students that were threatening to kill his brother, Charles.

However, Mr. Shattuck, a senior and captain of the football team and Student Council President at that time, disagrees with Williams, "No, actually the black students weren't harassed that much. They got to school without incident, because they came in the back of the school, and the mob was in the front...Once inside the school, they faced no harassment, neither was there any welcoming with open arms. Except in November, when Kasper came back to town and organized the Junior White Citizens Council, and then it was petty stuff like ink in lockers, tacks in seats, jostling in the hallway, and that sort of thing. But, the football team stationed itself at the hall corners, and we put a stop to that real quick.... We felt that this was the law of the land, and we were going to abide by it." Bobby Cain, Clinton's first Negro graduate, agrees with Shattuck that there wasn't any overt hostility, and he says, "I did manage to make a few friends." Despite the mostly peaceful atmosphere inside the school, problems continued to mount in town.

The Desegregation of Clinton, Tennessee

Friday, August 31 was the night of the big football rivalry game against Lake City. That night, even more cars poured into Clinton to see the game. Rumor spread that the segregationist groups were planning a cross-burning rally on the field at halftime. Although nothing happened at the game that night, the next night, Saturday night, was the night the State troopers and the National Guard were called into Clinton.

It started when a mob in the square in front of the Clinton courthouse got out of hand. The home guard, which had been inside the courthouse, began marching across the square in a line. It was then that the historic picture of the guard shown in newspapers and magazines across the country was taken. The guard was forced back into the courthouse by gunfire, and they called the governor. At that point it was decided that things were so out of hand that the State troopers were to be sent into the town. The story goes this way. Nearly 100 cars came over the bridge into town--with sirens blaring, they pulled up to the mob that had assembled between the courthouse and Hoskins, the local drugstore and soda fountain. Out of the lead, car climbed the six foot eight inch figure of Greg O'Rear, the head of the Highway Patrol, with a double-barreled shotgun slung over his shoulder. The story continues, that he stepped out and said to the assembled mob, "Alright, boys, it's all over." And, it was. The next day, the National Guard relieved the Highway Patrol and, from then through the end of September, policed Clinton.

The last major violent incident was on December 4, 1956, when the town held municipal elections. The White Citizens Council had put up a candidate for mayor who vowed to restore segregation if elected. On that day, three white citizens of Clinton decided to ensure that the Negro students going to Clinton High School arrived safely. Rev. Paul Turner, Sidney Davis, and Leo Burnett walked to the top of the hill and escorted ten of the 12 Negro students down the hill to the school. They got to the school safely, and, after the students went inside, the three men went their separate ways. However, when Rev. Turner turned to go to his church, First Baptist Church of Clinton, he was assaulted by a group of White Citizens Council members. While an elderly lady from a local flower shop managed to run the men off, Turner was, nevertheless, severely beaten. Although members of the White Citizens Council meant to scare citizens into supporting their candidate, he was soundly defeated.

Because of the assault on the Rev. Turner and numerous other incidents--including an attempt to enter the school where a student intervened to save Turner's wife, a Home Economics teacher, was saved from injury--Principal Brittain decided, that in the interest of the students' safety, he needed to act. So, the same day as the Reverend's attack, Brittain closed the school exactly two years after the Tennessee Supreme Court found segregation in education to be unconstitutional in Tennessee schools. Many of the seniors were terrified that they would be unable to graduate that year. "We could just see our senior year flying away," remarked one student. However, the violence could not hold Clinton High School down for long, and on December 10, six days after closing, the school was reopened.

Things remained quiet, and at the end of that year, Bobby Cain, the first Negro graduate of a desegregated public high school in the South, became a national news event. Members of the press from around the country attempted to talk to him. According to Jerry Shattuck, "Some of the senior boys got together and shielded him from the press that was trying to mob him." However, Mr. Cain's friend, Alfred Williams, remembers the event differently. "The night he graduated, they cut the lights out on him and hit him, then turned the lights back on. He never did find out who did it." After that year, major efforts by the segregationists in Clinton wound down. They felt that if one student could graduate, then more would follow, and indeed they did.

Principal Brittain resigned in the Spring of 1957. He and his wife had received countless threatening letters since the beginning of the school year and near constant harassment. A slight man of a 130 pounds, he lost 14 pounds, and had his life threatened no less than a dozen times during the school year. Earlier in the year, he had asked the student body to vote on whether or not they wanted him to resign; a similar ballot was taken home to the parents, and, except for six dissenting votes, the overwhelming majority believed that Brittain was doing a fine job and wanted him to remain. Nevertheless, by spring he had had enough and felt that it was time for him to resign. The problems had also taken their toll on the faculty of the high school.

By the beginning of the 1957-1958 school year, only seven of the school's teachers returned. Among them was Juanita Moser, who served as assistant principal and was a teacher. With a new principal, Mr. W.D. Human, school continued peacefully for the remainder of the year. It appeared to many that the worst was over, and that they had weathered the storm.

Two years later on Sunday, October 5, 1958, the peace of Clinton High School was once again shattered, this time by explosives. An estimated 75 to 100 sticks of dynamite ripped through the high school building in three successive blasts in the early morning hours. While the majority of the school was destroyed, no one was injured because the explosion's timing. The gym and the upper section of the school remained intact, but the rest of the building was in shambles with scarcely one stone remaining upon another. To this day, despite a Federal investigation, no one knows who was responsible for the bombing. To many, though, that really doesn't matter.

In the eyes of many people, the real story of the bombing and Clinton High School's integration is a story of a people united to preserve the peace and decency of a small town. Within three days of the bombing, Clinton High School students were attending classes in a borrowed school. Clinton High was moved seven miles away to the abandoned Linden Elementary School, which was donated by the Atomic Energy Commission, in Oak Ridge. While the old high school was salvaged for anything savable and, for the two years it took to complete the new Clinton High School building in 1960, students did their best to receive an education despite having to use chairs made for ten-year-olds and undersized lockers. Even the old rivalry of Clinton and Oak Ridge was put aside, and Clinton students arrived on their first day at Linden to the sounds of music from the Oak Ridge High School Marching Band.

Many people view the integration of Clinton High School as a success story. Although some may debate this view, most Clintonians will agree that it was successful. As Jerry Shattuck puts it, "The people in Clinton themselves made it happen. They needed help from the State, and they got it, and, later on, they needed help from the Federal marshals, and they got it, but nowhere else [in the country], in my opinion, did the people let it be known through their actions what their will was. And their will was not a commitment to integration. It was a commitment to ‘This is our decent, civilized little town, and we're going to obey the law of the land and not let it be messed up.' I think that this is the real success of the story." (source: PBS.org)

The Desegregation of Clinton, Tennessee (1957)

Kentucky Colored School House

Anderson Rosenwald School in Mars Hill NC

The Establishment of Rosenwald Schools

In the 1920s, the president of Sears, Roebuck and Co, Julius Rosenwald, created a fund to build schools in the rural areas of 15 southern states to enable black children to get an education during segregation. The schools were financed with matching grants from the Rosenwald fund, local governments and the local black communities.

The Anderson School in Mars Hill

The Rosenwald school in the then black Long Ridge section of Mars Hill was one of the more than 4000 constructed throughout the south with around 2000 built in North Carolina. There were more built in North Carolina than in any other state and the Anderson School is one of the few remaining in the mountains of western North Carolina. This school was built in 1930 and named for Joseph Anderson, a Mars Hill slave who was taken to jail as collateral security for a Mars Hill College debt in the 1850′s. Many of the people in the Long Ridge community trace their ancestry back to Anderson. For people in the Long Ridge Community, the symbol is more personal. It was their school, representing not just education, but through it, a doorway to equality for their children. And, for the whole community of Mars Hill it stands as a reminder of the struggle for equal rights.



Attending classes up to the 8th grade, more than 2000 African American children attended the Anderson School during the years it operated, ending with 1964, when the school was closed as a result of integration. During that time, there were some famous visitors, one of whom was automobile tycoon Henry Ford in 1918. Teachers and students told Ford they had no room for arts and crafts, so Ford later funded an art room behind the school. Just down the road at the small Mt. Olive Baptist church, the parents of jazz great Billy Strayhorn were married.
Restoring the Anderson Rosenwald School



Rosenwald was abandoned in the 1960s, but now an effort is under way to restore the old school. The school represents the initiative that provided quality buildings and reliable access to public education for African Americans in the South. Because “you can just feel the history there,” the community is working to preserve and renovate the school into a Community Cultural Center dedicated to promoting a fuller understanding of black history in the Blue Ridge region. The Mars Hill initiative is part of a nationwide movement to preserve Rosenwald Schools which is coordinated through the National Historic Conservation Trust.

To visit the site, take South Main Street from its junction with NC Highway 213 in downtown Mars Hill. After 1 mile, bear right onto Woods Ammons Road for 1/10 of a mile and then make the first left onto Long Ridge Road after 2/10 of a mile. Stay on Long Ridge for 2/10 of a mile and make a left onto Mt Olive Drive (just opposite the Mt Olive Church on the right side) and take the road to the end where the school site is.

Anderson Rosenwald School's piano inside the school building

Charity Ray, one of the alumni, went on to a retailing career in NYC, and is an artist whose work is respected in the county today. One of her best loved watercolors is of the Anderson School.

Video of the Anderson Rosenwald School

Mississippi's Roesnwald Schools

“Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school,”--Mississippi.

Panola County - Batesville School District - 1st Grade Classroom - 1955. University of Mississippi Visual Collections, John Elon Phay Collection

From the Mississippi History, "Rosenwald Schools in Mississippi," written by Jennifer Baughn: Public schooling in Mississippi did not become commonplace until after the American Civil War. After the United States Supreme Court decided in its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that states could require separate public facilities for blacks and whites as long as they were equal (the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine), white-dominated school boards began concentrating more of their efforts and funding on schools for white children, rather than for black. By the early 1900s, while many white children studied their textbooks in new functional buildings, black students were often left to make do in churches, lodges, and poorly constructed buildings that barely kept out the wind and the rain.

Panola County - Eureka Springs School - All Grades- 1955, University of Mississippi Visual Collections, John Elon Phay Collection

Beginning in the 1910s, however, new school buildings for African Americans began to spring up on the Mississippi landscape. The schools, constructed as a partnership between the Julius Rosenwald Fund and local citizens, represented a leap forward for black southerners who wanted to ensure an education for their children. When the philanthropic program ended in 1932, a victim of the Great Depression, more than 5,000 school buildings had been constructed under its auspices in fourteen southern states. Mississippi’s Rosenwald program constructed six hundred and thirty-three schools and ancillary buildings and was the South’s second-largest state program.

The Rosenwald Fund — the product of an alliance between Booker T. Washington, president and founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and Julius Rosenwald, president and chief executive officer of Sears, Roebuck & Co. in Chicago — was the only philanthropic effort in the early 20th century to concentrate on improving the learning environment of black students in the South. The fund accomplished this by giving grants to black communities to cover about a third of the cost of a building. The communities were expected to match the Rosenwald money with either cash or in-kind contributions of labor and materials and to gain financial support from the public school system. While the communities gained a quality building, they also lost a measure of control over their children’s education when the school, which had usually been run by its own board of trustees, came under the control of the county superintendent of education.

Bynum School in Panola County, Mississippi

Begun at Tuskegee in 1912 and initially focused on the few counties surrounding that campus, the Rosenwald Fund’s fame grew through the extensive personal networks of southern blacks. By the end of the 1910s, several states surrounding Alabama had a few Rosenwald schools. But after Washington’s death in 1915, Rosenwald lost confidence in the fund’s new leaders at Tuskegee Institute. He moved the fund’s management away from Tuskegee and set up a new office run by foundation professionals in Nashville. During the 1920s, the Rosenwald Fund became increasingly standardized and efficient, approving thousands of grants in all of the southern states.

Julius Rosenwald founder of the Roesnwald schools.

In Mississippi, only a dozen or so schools obtained help in the early years under Tuskegee’s management. The early buildings were not built to standard plans and often were not much better planned than non-Rosenwald schools. A major shift occurred after the Rosenwald Fund’s reorganization in 1919-1920. By 1922, the Rosenwald Fund reported that one hundred and forty-one Rosenwald schools had been built in Mississippi, including fifty-eight three-teacher schools and five houses for teachers.

Built in 1926, the Bynum School in Panola County is the only surviving one-classroom Rosenwald school in Mississippi. Photograph by Jennifer Baughn. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

A NEW SCHOOL BUILDING: A primary focus of the newly reorganized Rosenwald Fund was the quality of the construction of school buildings that would be built with its funds. The fund wanted to build the most schools it could, but it also wanted them to meet current building standards and to be solidly constructed of good materials. Rosenwald also wanted to incorporate knowledge gained during a decade of careful study into lighting levels and ventilation. At the time, rural schools, and even some town schools, did not have electricity to provide lighting or heat. Thus, lighting needed to come into the building through windows, and studies had shown that schools needed many more windows than had previously been thought in order to give students sufficient light. In addition, new research showed that good ventilation prevented the spread of germs and diseases.

Using the findings from a survey of the existing Rosenwald schools by consultant Fletcher B. Dresslar, a recognized authority on the topic of school hygiene and good school planning, the fund, led by its new director Samuel L. Smith, drew a new set of standard plans that would be used to construct almost all Rosenwald schools in the 1920s. From 1920 onward, the Rosenwald Fund’s emphasis moved from funding “better schools” to encouraging “model schools” that could be standards for both black and white schools in the South.

Rosenwald plan for a one-teacher school. Courtesy Julius Rosenwald Fund, Community School Plans, Bulletin No. 3, Nashville, Tennessee, 1924.

The new plans allowed for a broad variety of schools, based on the number of teachers per school. Ranging from one-classroom structures with a gable front — a common school form in all areas of the country — to large twelve-classroom buildings with auditoriums, the plans relied on simple forms and construction techniques that would be accessible to the many volunteer laborers who built these schools. Several new features of the schools did in fact become models for school architecture in the 1920s, such as:

Prentiss Institute Rosenwald School, Prentiss, Jefferson Davis County

• One-story construction, which required slightly more land but was easier to build and was considered a safety improvement following several deadly school fires in two-story buildings.

• Large groupings of windows, concentrated on the east and west elevations of buildings, became the hallmark of schools for both black and white students in the 1920s. Previously, rural school buildings would have a few scattered windows, with windows on several walls of each classroom. Studies showed, however, that light from many directions caused a glare that could damage a student’s eyesight.

• Two school forms, the H-plan and the T-plan, became standard for rural and town schools alike in the 1920s. The Rosenwald standardized plans used these two forms almost exclusively for schools of four classrooms or more. Both plans contained an auditorium for school and community gatherings, but the H-plan was designed to face north or south, with its windows on the sides facing east and west, while the T-plan was designed to face east or west with its windows on the front and back. These simple but effective plans show the ingenuity and flexibility of the Rosenwald Fund’s program and the emphasis on quality even in difficult circumstances.

Prentiss Institute Rosenwald School, Prentiss, Jefferson Davis County

Only fifteen of the original five hundred and fifty-seven schools aided by the Rosenwald Fund are known to still stand in Mississippi. Of these, about half are either greatly altered or in a deteriorated state. The sole surviving one-classroom school is the Bynum School, built in 1926, in Panola County. Two good examples of the H-plan form are the concrete-block building (1926) at the Prentiss Institute in Jefferson Davis County, a six-classroom building constructed according to Rosenwald Plan #6-A, and the Brushy Creek School (circa 1930) in Copiah County, a clapboard Rosenwald Plan #4-A. The Drew Rosenwald school in Sunflower County began as a substantial T-plan Rosenwald, and grew over the years into a sprawling building with a large student population. The T-plan especially was popular because it could easily handle any needed expansion.

Brushy Creek School, 1930, in Copiah County, Mississippi

In addition to the known Rosenwald schools, Mississippi has some “ghost schools,” a group of schools that were supposed to have received Rosenwald Funds but the money was fraudulently diverted for personal use between 1923-1928. The Rosenwald agent at the Mississippi Department of Education, Bura Hilbun, who was responsible for overseeing the Rosenwald Fund in Mississippi and sending in final reports to the Nashville office, was later found to have falsified records and pocketed the money meant for certain schools. Hilbun’s fraud was found after he left the education department. He was convicted of embezzlement in 1931 in the Hinds County Circuit Court, after two hung juries. Hilbun appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court but it upheld the lower court’s decision.

Poplar Hill School, Fayette vicinity, Jefferson County – (c. 1923) (National Register). Poplar Hill School in Jefferson County is a rare example of a rural school built in the early 20th century to serve the surrounding African American community. The one-story wood frame building with a side-gable metal roof was built c. 1923 and housed two classrooms. Two teachers were responsible for educating students from grades 1 through 8.

As a result of Hilbun’s falsified records, the historical records of the Rosenwald Fund at Fisk University Archives in Nashville list some schools that were not actually built, thus the “ghost schools.” One of those ghost schools has survived. Poplar Hill School is a rare two-classroom black school in rural Jefferson County, and while the school appears in the Rosenwald Fund database on the Fisk website, it is not, in fact, a Rosenwald plan and did not receive any Rosenwald funding. This was distressing news to a group of interested alumni who in 2009 pursued a National Register of Historic Places listing for the building as a Rosenwald school. Nonetheless, the building is still significant as a rare surviving rural African-American school, once one of thousands that dotted the Mississippi landscape.

Sherman Line School in Amite County, Mississippi, built in 1928. Photograph by Jennifer Baughn. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

BUILDING SCHOOL COMMUNITIES: The Rosenwald Fund did not stop with just building new classroom buildings for students. Located in rural areas with poor road systems, the schools came to be somewhat self-sufficient campuses, eventually including not only houses for teachers but also separate buildings for vocational and home economics education.

John White School teacher’s house (1925) in Forrest County

The Rosenwald Fund understood well the challenges of rural schools, and the first and most important one was attracting qualified teachers. School trustees often found it necessary to build a teacher’s house on the campus as a way to entice a principal who could oversee the school’s functioning. Not only did a teacher’s house keep principals and teachers longer at the school, but it provided security for the campus and an on-site alarm in case of fire. As it did with school plans, the fund offered several different house plans for teachers to accommodate families of various sizes. The Rosenwald Fund helped build fifty-eight teacher houses in the state, and many school boards built houses for teachers as well. At least two of the Rosenwald houses still stand in the state, the John White School teacher’s house (1925) in Forrest County and the former president’s house (circa 1930) at Coahoma Community College north of Clarksdale, a campus that began as one of only two agricultural high schools for African Americans. The other school was Hinds County Agricultural High School in Utica (1946).

Pope Chapel Elementary School, Panola County, 1955.

Vocational buildings or shops were also seen as a way to improve both the campus and the school’s educational program. The Rosenwald Fund emphasized vocational education not only because of its origins at Washington’s Tuskegee Institute but because training in agricultural and mechanical skills was thought to be the best way to educate rural children of both races for much of the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, backed by sufficient funding, white consolidated schools of the same period far outstripped black schools in providing buildings and teachers for vocational and home economics education and were considered better schools because of it. Only eighteen vocational buildings for black schools were constructed in Mississippi under the Rosenwald program, primarily because of lack of matching funds and because building a vocational building also meant hiring an extra teacher to teach the classes. This was often out of reach for the Rosenwald schools struggling to survive on limited funding from the public school boards.

Rose Hill School in Sharkey County, Mississippi, is a Rosenwald school.

By 1932, two years after Rosenwald’s death and three years after the stock market crash slashed the value of its endowment, the Rosenwald Fund ceased its building program, leaving southern blacks and southern progressives to find another solution for black education. (source: Mississippi History)