Veterans of a NC Rosenwald School join President Obama at the African American Museum’s Opening

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.