On November, 15th Southern Vermont College will welcome Rosenwald director Aviva Kempner for a screening and talk following the film. As well as giving her talk, Kempner will also be discussing the film and related topics with Southern Vermont College Humanities students and Bennington’s Temple Beth El.
You may not have thought that in watching the 2016 US Election coverage you could glimpse Julius Rosenwald’s influence, but time and time again his campaign of equality and education in the the early 20th century shines on through, even in present day. When Tim Kaine quoted Langston Hughes following Hillary Clinton’s defeat to Donald Trump, he not only referenced one of the greatest African American writers of all time but also a two time recipient of Rosenwald Grants for Creative Writing, one in 1931 and one 10 years later in 1941.
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. Dreams
~Langston Hughes, 1951
Carl Johnson, the last of Tuskegee Airman to graduate, still vividly remembers the challenges against segregation and bigotry the Tuskegee airmen from World War II had to overcome. The Tuskegee Institute, the historically black university founded by Booker T. Washington provided the airmen with rooms, food, hangars and flight instructors. It wasn’t until 2007 that Carl Johnson and other Tuskegee Airmen were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Colin Powell, who served as the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “You showed America that there was nothing a black person couldn’t do.” The nation’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture features their plane, the Spirit of Tuskegee. We salute them for their service!
The Julius Rosenwald Fund financed the building of Moton Field, the primary flight facility for the training of the African American pilots at Tuskegee Institute. The Rosenwald film closes with a segment about the airmen and includes footage of Eleanor Roosevelt (a board member of the Rosenwald fund) visiting and praising them. The upcoming release of the Rosenwald DVD and Extras will also feature a segment about the Tuskegee Institute and its mission.
The Cleveland County Training School #2, N.C. was damaged by a fire September 15. The building was a historic Rosenwald School and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s owned by Christ Temple Apostolic Family Worship Center Inc and was being used to store the church’s clothing closet and food pantry for the homeless, both of which perished during the fire. The damage was too extensive to determine the cause of the fire.
Ted Alexander, of Preservation North Carolina said, “It was the last Rosenwald related school in Cleveland County.” More than 5,000 Rosenwald Schools were established by Julius Rosenwald and were built across 15 southern states during the early 20th century and primarily used for the education of African-American children. “Those are nationally important so it’s sad that it burned.” Elder Mark McDowell, a Christ Temple board member says that despite the damage, they would still like the building redeveloped and renovated so its history can be preserved and be open to the community.
In 1951, John Dudley, Harold and Frances Suggs, and Eleanor Darden Stewart led a student organized walkout of their all-black Adkin High School in Kinston, NC to demand better conditions at the school. On Saturday, September 24 they were among the first members of the public to visit the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Back in 1951, they came up with a list of demands including a proper gym, a vocational shop, more classrooms and a home economics area, and took them to a board of education meeting in Kinston. Despite the school board’s initial declaration of a lack of resources within 18 months the students got everything they asked for.
Adkin High School was a “Rosenwald school” built in 1928 for African American students with the help of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald who helped build many such schools across the South in the early 1900s. You can read more about the walkout here.
Visitors to the National Museum of African American History will have the opportunity to view desks from the Rosenwald Hope School in Pomaria, South Carolina.
The Northwest Georgia News is reporting on the upcoming 92nd Anniversary Celebration of the Fairview School Symposium and Gala Weekend, November 11 and 12. The event benefits the Fairview-E.S. Brown School in Cave Spring near Rome, GA, which is one of four buildings that stood on a Rosenwald campus.
The highlight of the weekend is the screening of Rosenwald on November 12 at the Historic DeSoto Theatre.
There are places in this world that should not be forgotten.
A little one-room school building in Cave Spring is one such place. It may not boast any fancy architecture and it doesn’t have a long list of famous alumni. But at one time, this small building represented hope, education and a future for many African American children across several counties. . . . Much of its history has been lost, but the building remains an example of segregated education and the impact it had on the children and the surrounding communities at the time. -“Forever Fairview: Restoring and Preserving History,” by Severo Avila, Features Editor, Northwest Georgia News
She remembers the smells of the hair pomades in the factory, where women stirred ointment by hand in great, black vats.
She remembers her mother taking her to Madam C.J. Walker’s beauty school in Indianapolis in the 1960s to have her hair styled in an Afro.
She remembers growing up with remnants of the black wealth created by Walker, who built an empire in the early 1900s selling hair scalp ointments and whose accomplishments will be on display at the Smithsonian’s new African American Museum of History and Culture, which opens Sept. 24.
The school burned down 70 years ago, but many in the area still remember it well.
The Anadarko community is south of Henderson, settled by former slaves in the late 1860s, and it has been officially designated an historical site by the Texas Historical Commission and the unveiling of the Anadarko Rosenwald School Historical Marker.
Historical markers may seem a common site around Texas, but there were only 15 approved in the last year, and the Anadarko community is getting a large one….
The Ciesla Foundation mourns the passing of Gene Wilder on August 29. A masterful comedic actor with an infectious smile that wavered between mischievous and neurotic, Wilder kept us laughing while many of his movie roles took aim at prejudices based on race and religion. These include films with director Mel Brooks such as Blazing Saddles, The Producers and Young Frankenstein, which Wilder co-wrote with Brooks.
In the 1979 comedy-adventure, The Frisco Kid (directed by Robert Aldrich, The Dirty Dozen), Wilder plays an immigrant rabbi, Avram Belinski, traveling across the untamed United States to San Francisco. Three scenes from the film help tell the story of Rosenwald. In the first, Avram (Wilder) disembarking from the ship carrying him from Poland illustrates the arrival in the port of Baltimore of Samuel Rosenwald, Julius’ father, from Germany in 1851. Another scene of Avram walking brings to life Samuel’s early years here as a peddler while in another scene, the Frisco Kid’s wedding recalls that of Julius’ parents.
Some Rosenwald audience members have said that the film’s portrayal of the immigrant experience in the 1800s was so authentic that they wondered wheredirector Aviva Kempner got such wonderful original footage, not knowing or forgetting that these film scenes recreated a time before recording moving images was invented.
Click here to see some scenes from The Frisco Kid as we remember the wonderful work and life of Gene Wilder.
A recent review of the Jesmyn Ward edited book, The Fire this Time, posted by the NY Times cites the collection of essays as a powerful reflection of the very experiences described by the Rosenwald Fund recipient, James Baldwin, through a modern lens. This reflection can be seen directly in the books title, taken from Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. It’s incredible to see that Baldwin’s impact is still clear more than 50 years later.
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