In a small ceremony held at the Shepherd Park Library in Northwest Washington D.C., the Humanities Council of Washington D.C. awarded its 2013 Cycle I Grants. The Ciesla Foundation, among a group of other deserving awardees, received funds that will be used to film final interviews for The Rosenwald Schools documentary. Many thanks to the Humanities Council for this generous award.
Aviva Kempner and Michael Rose of the Ciesla Foundation receiving a check from D.C. Humanities director Joy Ford Austin
Photo courtesy of the Humanities Council of Washington D.C.
Finding footage of someone who lived in the early twentieth century can be very difficult, even when the subject in question–Julius Rosenwald–was relatively well-known. As a result, as we conduct research for The Rosenwald Schools, every time we uncover a piece of film footage that contains Rosenwald himself we get excited.
Usually, we aren’t able to share these finds on our blog because of copyright issues, but the video embedded in this post is from film housed at the National Archives and falls into the public domain. Enjoy this tantalizingly short glimpse of Julius Rosenwald in 1929, shot in Clinton Township, Michigan. The film was made to document the Lights Golden Anniversary, a 50th anniversary celebration of Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb. Rosenwald was 67 when the film was shot – he would pass away a little more than 2 years later.
On Saturday, April 20th at 4:00 PM, the National Gallery of Art will screen a new 30 minute documentary about noted D.C.-area artist and art historian, David Driskell. The film, David Driskell: In Search of the Creative Truth, shows Driskell at work and explains his variety of influences.
David Driskell in his studio, from In Search of the Creative Truth
Driskell, as we learned when we interviewed him back in December, is a wealth of knowledge about artists like Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, Jacob Lawrence and Langston Hughes (all of whom were Rosenwald fellows). David Driskell: In Search of the Creative Truth is available to view on IMDb.com. When it screens at the National Gallery of Art, Driskell will be present along with his collaborator, print maker Curlee Holton, and Dr. Johnnetta Cole, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
When we started thinking about making a film on the life of Julius Rosenwald, the story of the Rosenwald schools seemed like his most amazing accomplishment. In making the film, we have come to realize that his many other philanthropic projects (including Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, the black YMCA building program, his work within the Jewish community in Chicago and the Rosenwald Fund grants to up and coming black artists and intellectuals) merit changing the title of film to something broader than the current working title, The Rosenwald Schools.
We would love to know if you have an idea for a new title for the film. The creator of the winning title will be listed under “Special Thanks” in the credits of the completed film. Please follow this link to a page where you can input your ideas: Title Input Contest
Charles H. Houston, a key figure in the history of legal challenges to segregation, also has an interesting connection to the Rosenwald Schools. Houston, who was born in Washington D.C., went on to practice law in the area as well as instruct students such as Thurgood Marshall at Howard Law School. His career as a lawyer spanned the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, and included many important civil rights cases. Kenneth W. Mack’s new book, Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer, gives an excellent background of Houston’s life and accomplishments.
Being a lawyer, Houston focused especially on the integration of the country’s legal system. At this time, segregation in the courts was different than the segregation faced by other professions, like doctors, teachers or small business owners. As W.E.B. Du Bois observed in 1899, since “a lawyer must have co-operation from fellow lawyers and respect and influence in court… prejudice or discrimination of any kind is especially felt in this profession.” Especially in the South, black attorneys were forced to put up with many hurdles and limits set up within the courtroom. In 1933, Houston accepted a case with which he could challenge the segregated Southern court system in Loudoun County, Virginia. In the murder trial of George Crawford, Houston set important precedents for the rights of black attorneys to argue major cases and the importance of black participation in juries.
Although Houston did not live to see the Supreme Court’s groundbreaking decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a project he undertook during the fall of 1934 played a major role in the landmark verdict. During this time, Houston traveled to the South and filmed black schools in order to document the inequalities under Jim Crow segregation. These films (funded by a philanthropic organization out of New York, the Harmon Foundation) went on to be used as a vital exhibit in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 (four years after Houston’s death).
These films are important to our project on Julius Rosenwald for an unlikely reason. While they were meant to demonstrate the failure of school districts to maintain black schools (the intertitles point out that the roofs and windows are in need of repair) they remain as possibly the oldest moving images of Rosenwald Schools. Houston’s footage of what is believed to be the Bethel Grade School in South Carolina will be featured in the upcoming documentary, The Rosenwald Schools, a clip from which can be viewed here:
In addition to breaking down the barriers of segregation in the legal system, Houston was a great believer in the importance of equal educational opportunity. In 1935, he claimed that “Discrimination in education is symbolic of all the more drastic discriminations which Negroes suffer in American life” (quoted in Genna Rae McNeil and A. Leon Higginbotham’s biography, Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights). Like Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington before him, Houston fought for equality in education for all.
Last Thursday, June 21st, Aviva Kempner showed her work in progress of the upcoming film The Rosenwald Schools to an American University audience at the Katzen Arts Center on Massachusetts Ave NW. The event was part of a month-long lecture series from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The film received a warm reception by the OLLI members. Some members of the audience offered to do fundraising events for the film.
Aviva Kempner speaks at American University
Photo credit: Lena Frumin, 6/21/12
Recent Comments