On Julius Rosenwald

Posted: 12/27/2015

Trigger

Recently read An Unsung Hero of Black Education Businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald helped build thousands of quality elementary schools in the segregated South. This is another extraordinary, little known story about how American Jews and Black Americans collaborated. I do not remember having ever heard or read about Julius Rosenberg before. I have not yet seen the eponymous documentary yet.

I have written a number of critical posts here on the so called Civil Rights movement, which, in my opinion, was more like a second Civil War waged on the South. The story of Julius Rosenberg is another proof that massive Big Government intervention was not necessary at all to improve the lives of Black Americans.

Notes

1. Julius Rosenberg was one of the exceptional entrepreneurs of the U.S. See e.g. his story here. “After World War I, Sears was in dire financial shape and Rosenwald brought Sears back from the brink of bankruptcy by pledging some $21 million of his personal fortune, in cash, stock and other assets to rescue the company.”
   “Rosenwald insisted that the company's primary goal must be responsibility to the customer. He established the "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" pledge and conducted his business dealings by the creed "Sell honest merchandise for less money and more people will buy."”
2. “Of all his philanthropic efforts, Rosenwald was most famous for the more than 5,000 "Rosenwald schools" he established throughout the South for poor, rural black youth, and the 4,000 libraries he added to existing schools. The network of new public schools subsequently employed more than 14,000 teachers.”. “The buildings had modern lighting and sanitation. Classrooms had adequate supplies of books and desks and blackboards. The teachers were better trained and better paid.”
3. Reportedly, it was Paul J. Sachs (of Goldman Sachs fame) who introduced Julius Rosenberg to e.g. Booker T. Washington.
4. Julius Rosenberg served on the board of the Tuskegee Institute from 1912 until his death 1932
5. “He established his Rosenwald Fund in 1917 for "the well-being of mankind." Unlike other endowed foundations, which were designed to fund themselves in perpetuity, the Rosenwald Fund was intended to use all of its funds for philanthropic purposes. As a result, the fund was completely spent by 1948.” Did Rosenberg anticipate so early the thorny issue of original donor intent or followed the idea of giving while living and sunsetting?
6. “Julius Rosenwald supported the Wabash Avenue YMCA (Chicago), opened in 1914, which would later become an historic landmark. The Wabash "Y" greatly aided blacks' integration into Chicago during the Great Migration. It is still operating today.”
7. The argument that Julius Rosenberg promoted racially segregated schooling is phony at best in my opinion. “In reality, Rosenwald and Washington did both. Throughout his career, Washington funded legal challenges to racial discrimination. And Rosenwald financed a third of the litigation costs in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that declared public-school segregation unconstitutional. But the larger point is that both men realized that poor blacks at the time needed good teachers and quality schools, not white classmates.”
8. “The Rosenwald Fund also made fellowship grants directly to African-American artists, writers, researchers and intellectuals between 1928 and 1948. Civil rights leader Julian Bond, ... Hundreds of grants were disbursed to artists, writers and other cultural figures, many of whom became prominent or already were, including photographer Gordon Parks Jr., Elizabeth Catlett, poet Claude McKay, Dr. Charles Drew, Augusta Savage, anthropologist and dancer Katherine Dunham, singer Marian Anderson, writer Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and poets Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and Rita Dove. Fellowships of around $1,000 to $2,000 were given out yearly to applicants and were usually designed to be open-ended; the Foundation requested but did not require grantees to report back on what they accomplished with the support.”
9. “Black communities raised more than $4.7 million to aid in construction, plus often donating land and labor. These schools became known as "Rosenwald Schools." By 1932, the facilities could accommodate one- third of all African-American children in Southern schools. Research has found that the Rosenwald program accounts for a sizable portion of the educational gains of rural Southern blacks in this period. This research also found significant effects on school attendance, literacy, years of schooling, cognitive test scores, and Northern migration, with gains highest in the most disadvantaged counties.”
   This is probably one of the most overlooked and underreported facts that Black Americans themselves did so much to improve their situation without Big Government!