This is Ozarks at Large. I'm Kyle Kellams.
In January, we spoke with Ralph Wilcox, National Register and survey coordinator at the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. We discussed his research into Rosenwald schools. The schools were spread across the South, including more than 300 in Arkansas. They were schools for African American children, often in communities that provided no education for these children. The more than 5,000 schools across the country were funded by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, in partnership with Booker T. Washington. There is work being conducted to establish a national park in honor of Rosenwald.
Dorothy Canter is president of the Rosenwald Park Campaign and a longtime volunteer and ally of the National Parks Conservation Association. She says she hadn't heard of Julius Rosenwald or the schools he helped fund until she and her husband couldn't agree on a movie to watch.
Dorothy Canter: And I looked in the weekend section of The Washington Post and I saw a little column, short column, on this documentary, "Rosenwald," and I asked my husband, have you ever heard of Julius Rosenwald? He said, no. I said, neither have I. And I said, would you think that he could have been the person who helped make Sears the retailing powerhouse of the twentieth century? And he said, no. And we said, well, let's go see the documentary. And it's a 90-minute documentary. And it was inspiring. It sort of blew us away. And at the end of the film, I turned to Jerry and I said, there needs to be a national park to commemorate the life and legacy of Julius Rosenwald and the impact of the Rosenwald schools. And why did I say that? Because I had never heard of Julius Rosenwald four hours previously. And it's because I'm a very staunch fan and protector of national parks. And I've been on the board of the National Parks Conservation Association for nine years. And I never went away, still haven't gone away. And I visited over 300 national parks, and I knew that there wasn't one park that commemorates the life and legacy of a Jewish American or the impact of Rosenwald schools. And that's how the journey began.
Kyle Kellams: The impact of Rosenwald schools — in the thousands across the South, schools that were built to educate Black children when there was severe segregation in southern education systems.
Dorothy Canter: Exactly. And in many places, there was either no or very little education. And this was in spite of the fact that the families were paying taxes. And most of the money that they paid went to white education. Not that white education was that great either, but it certainly was much, much better than the education for the African American children.
Kyle Kellams: So he's wildly successful, does not have a high school or college degree, is not from the South. What led him to help bring into creation thousands of schools for Black children across the U.S. South?
Dorothy Canter: Well, there were several things. One was the basic tenets of the Jewish religion about — it's called tzedakah, which is like social justice. It's not just charity, it's social justice. And there's another term called tikkun olam, which is repairing the world. And so that was part of it. But another part of it is, well, he was in New York — he roomed in a rooming house with a couple people. One was Paul Sachs. And if you think of Goldman Sachs, that's right. And Paul Sachs in 1910 sent him two books to read. One was Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery," and the other was a biography of William Baldwin, who was a railroad tycoon in Long Island and also a member of the Tuskegee board. He was a philanthropist, so he had these two books which influenced him mightily. And he wrote to his daughters saying that he would like to be like William Baldwin.
And later that year, people came to him. He had been giving to the YMCA in Chicago, and they came to him and they asked him if he would contribute to building a YMCA for African Americans in Chicago. Because if you're African American and you didn't have family and you didn't have friends, there was no place for you to go. Because there was segregation in the South, which was much worse, but there was still segregation in the North. And so Rosenwald replied — and probably, I mean, I wasn't there, but I can imagine how they responded. He said, I will give $25,000 to each city in the United States that will come up independently with $75,000 to build a YMCA for African Americans. And so that program started at the end of 1910. It went on through until 1932, and there were 24 YMCAs built in the nation and two YWCAs.
So we had already started to do something for African Americans. And as a Jew, he could feel the way they did, because Jews were, of course, subjected to great prejudice — not as much as in the Hitler period. But he knew what it was like. And he also said that I don't see how this country can move forward if part of its people are left behind. So he could understand, empathize with the condition of African Americans. And so with that background, I feel that Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington were two magnets of opposite charge that were sort of looking for each other. And then they came — they really bonded because, as you know, Booker T. Washington was born into slavery. He walked across Virginia to get to Hampton to become highly educated. And he went, against all odds, and founded and led Tuskegee University and made it very successful. And one of the things about him is he was the consummate fundraiser. I don't think there was anybody quite like him.
So he hears — and this is now Dorothy Canter speaking — he hears about Julius Rosenwald making this offer. And he goes to Chicago to find a new member of the board of trustees for Tuskegee. Rosenwald hears he's coming to Chicago. Rosenwald has a luncheon for him at a fancy hotel, takes him out to see the Sears Roebuck facility the next day, and shortly thereafter Washington invites him to join the board. And being the careful businessman that he was, he hires a railroad car. He goes down to Montgomery and then on to Tuskegee, takes with him his rabbi, Emil Hirsch, takes with him his wife. He takes Jane Addams of Hull House, and he goes down to see — is very impressed, joins the board. Less than a year later, he turns 50. He gives away a lot of money. Some of it goes to Tuskegee, and Washington says, will you put $2,800 for a pilot project to build six schools in rural Alabama? And from that came 5,357 schools, teacher homes and shop buildings in 20 years.
Kyle Kellams: Tell me about the campaign to establish the Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park. Where are we, and what will it look like when it's ready?
Dorothy Canter: Well, we're on the way to getting legislation. We started in 2016, and it was two people representing the National Parks Conservation Association. I was a volunteer for NPCA. Alan Spears, who's the head now of Cultural Resources, was the employee. And we met in one of their conference rooms with two people representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation — Brent Leggs, who is about to become the president, and a guy named Tom Cassidy, who has since retired. And we plotted a path forward and we started with a board. And NPCA very graciously accepted money on our behalf until we could get our 501(c)(3) designation. I've been, as I said, very connected with NPCA all these years.
And so in 2020, legislation was passed for the National Park Service to do a special resource study of the sites that are associated with Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald schools, and President Trump signed it on Jan. 13, 2021. If he hadn't signed it that day, it would have been a pocket veto. And for the Park Service it was pretty quick. They did a special resource study. And then in June 2024, they came out with the report, which concluded that both Rosenwald and Rosenwald schools are of national historic significance. And of the 11 schools and one teacher home that they evaluated, they said that the San Domingo School in Wicomico County, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore, was the one that met all the criteria for being a national park unit.
And in 2024, some legislation was introduced, but nothing got through Congress for national parks at the end of that session of Congress. And new legislation — Senator Durbin introduced new legislation on Feb. 25, during Black History Month, to create the National Historical Park, and it will consist of three different categories of things. It will add three Rosenwald schools: one, the one in San Domingo in Maryland; another is the Woodville Rosenwald School in Virginia; and the third is the St. George Rosenwald School in South Carolina. It will consist of a site to be determined — that's the exact language — for a visitor center in Chicago, within or near the original Sears Roebuck facility, and a network of other Rosenwald schools that are not in the park but are associated with the park. So we have verified that there are over 600 schools that still exist.
Kyle Kellams: Dorothy Canter is president of the Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald Schools National Historic Park Campaign. We spoke last week by phone. This is Ozarks at Large.
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