by datdudejbal | Oct 23, 2017 | Uncategorized
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, DC – November 7, 2017 – In honor of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Rosenwald Fund, the Ciesla Foundation, the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), and the Israeli Embassy will present a FREE screening and discussion of Aviva Kempner’s ROSENWALD on November 7th at 4:30pm. The screening at UDC’s David A. Clarke School of Law will be followed by a 7:00pm reception at the Israeli Embassy. This event also celebrates the Rosenwald two-disc DVD release, available for purchase November 7, 2017. The documentary focuses on Julius Rosenwald, a businessman and visionary whose “legacy of correcting society’s ills during the Jim Crow period is sadly pertinent today as America still needs to address racial inequalities in our society,” says award-winning filmmaker Kempner, also a graduate of the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law’s predecessor, the Antioch School of Law
Acknowledging Kempner’s contributions to social justice, Dean of UDC Law Katherine “Shelley” Broderick says, “UDC Law is now, as it was when Kempner attended it during its founding years, the nation’s law school most committed to training lawyers through the provision of legal services to low-income people.”
A panel discussion will follow the Rosenwald screening with honored guests: Danielle Holley-Walker, dean of Howard University School of Law, Dr. Charlene Drew Jarvis, daughter of Dr. Charles Drew, and filmmaker Kempner. Dean Broderick will moderate the discussion. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh will welcome guests at the Israeli embassy.
Dr. Drew Jarvis, whose father Dr. Charles Drew received a Rosenwald Fund grant and pioneered blood storage methods used by the American Red Cross, is also a member of the UDC Board of Trustees. She notes, “Julius Rosenwald recognized the enormous potential, strength of character and unparalleled talent existing in the African-American community. That’s why when Booker T. Washington asked, he gave his time and treasure to help build 5,000 schools for black children in the south.”
Dean Holley-Walker and Kempner will shed light on the legacy of Charles Hamilton Houston, whose film footage of Southern segregated schools supported legal arguments in desegregation cases, like the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education decision. This historical footage can be found in Rosenwald. Houston, who was a dean of Howard University School of Law from 1929-1935, was also a mentor to civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall and is known as the “man who killed Jim Crow.”
In the spirit of Rosenwald’s efforts to address systemic and social discrimination faced by African-American and Jewish communities, the Israeli Embassy will host a reception after the screening. The Israeli cultural attaché, Ms. Delphine Gamburg, initiated this partnership. “We need to continue the dialogue on the long-standing African-American and Jewish alliances. It is essential, particularly in the climate of tension as we know it today, to maintain and strengthen the ties between African- American and Jewish communities. More than ever, we must work hand in hand together for greater fraternity, solidarity and justice,” she said.
Contact:
Veronika Gajer
veronika.cieslafdn@gmail.com
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by datdudejbal | Aug 15, 2017 | Uncategorized
On June 26, 2017, in a moving ceremony in front of the Chevy Chase Community Center and Library, a bench honoring Civil Rights leader Julian Bond was unveiled. Its inscription reads:
In Memory of Julian Bond 1940 – 2015
“Race Man”
A Life Dedicated to Civil Rights
The dedication was attended by friends, family and city officials, including Mayor Muriel Bowser and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, who initiated the bench’s installation. Also in attendance were a dozen former members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which Bond co-founded in 1960. In her remarks, Cheh commented: “I know it might seem a bit modest for such a grand life, such a giant of a man, but he would be delighted to know that this bench was here.”
“I’m so happy, because Julian always talked about wanting a bench, and now he has a bench,” said Bond’s widow Pamela Horowitz. “We lived in this neighborhood. He walked in the neighborhood a lot, because he said it was his thinking time.” She said she hopes people sit on the bench and “think about how to make the world a better place.”
Julian Bond was the inspiration behind the making of Aviva Kempner’s film Rosenwald. Kempner first learned of Julius Rosenwald’s partnership with Booker T. Washington when she heard Bond give a talk 14 years ago. Bond served as chairman of the NAACP and in the Georgia legislature for 20 years. He advocated for DC statehood and gay rights. His father Horace Mann was the president of Lincoln University and had received a Rosenwald grant.
Some of those attending the ceremony wondered what was meant by “Race Man.” In a Washington Post article, Mark Anthony Neal wrote that “Race man” is a term from the beginning of the 20th century that describes Black men of stature and integrity who represented the best that African Americans had to offer in the face of Jim Crow segregation. It remains an unspoken measure of commitment to uplifting the race. “Race men” inspire pride in their work, their actions and their speech. Biographer Will Haygood wrote of Thurgood Marshall: “He was ‘a race man.’ He was consistently for his race, first and last.” Had the plaque been double-sided, Bond would have liked the back to say, “Easily Amused,” Horowitz said, in recognition of the need to have a sense of humor while doing serious work. Watch an NBC news report here.
Pamela Horowitz, widow of Julian Bond, (standing, center) and veterans of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) gathered to dedicate a bench in honor of Bond.
Councilmember Mary Cheh spoke about Civil Rights Leader Julian Bond.
by datdudejbal | Aug 4, 2017 | Uncategorized
Dennis Babb from the Northampton County Museum in Jackson has researched the history of Rosenwald schools in the county. “When consolidation and integration began, the Rosenwald Schools closed,” Babb said.
The schools were all built on similar floor plans making them easy to identify and there were 21 of them. Only a few remain, but some have found new life in their communities as a community center or as center rented out for events. Read the article in The Daily Herald here.
The Potecasi Rosenwald school building (above) reopened as a community center last year with the support of alumni and community leaders. Photo by Cal Bryant, The Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald
by datdudejbal | Jun 1, 2017 | Uncategorized
A Frank Lloyd Wright proposed design for a Rosenwald School for African American children will be presented by Mabel O. Wilson, Columbia University and the Society of Architectural Historians, during a special study day at MoMA on June 2.
A sketch by architect Frank Lloyd Wright envisions the Rosenwald Foundation School. It will be presented along with many other items from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives in a major retrospective planned by New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2017. – Original Credit: Handout (Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation / HANDOUT)
The MoMA Exhibit: Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive will run from June 12 – Oct. 1, 2017. It marks the 150th anniversary of the American Architect’s birth and the fifth anniversary of the transferof the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives to the joint stewardship of MoMA and the Avery Architecture and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.
Prof. Wilson is the author of Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums, a runner-up for John Hope Franklin Prize for the best American Studies publication in 2012. Her scholarly essays have appeared in numerous journals and books on critical geography, memory studies, art and architecture. She has received awards, fellowships and residencies from Getty Research Institute, New York State Council for the Arts, and ID magazine. She is currently developing the manuscript Building Race and Nation: How Slavery Influenced Antebellum American Civic Architecture and collaborating on a collection of essays on race and modern architecture.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s proposed design in 1928 was probably never built because it would have been too expensive. His version was ambitious and included a courtyard with a swimming pool and a proscenium stage. Its construction would have included pioneering use of concrete and fieldstone that he would use on later buildings.
In total, there were 5,357 Rosenwald schools, shop houses, and teacher’s houses built. Most remained in use until the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling went into effect in 1954 and black schools were no longer a necessity. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working to restore many of the school and many of the buildings have found new uses as town halls, community centers and more.
Read more on Prof. Wilson’s presentation here.
Read more on MoMA’s exhibition here.
by datdudejbal | May 31, 2017 | Uncategorized
On April 19th, a screening of the Rosenwald documentary in Rockville, Maryland—just outside Washington, DC—focused on the little-known but history changing connection between a Rosenwald school there and Thurgood Marshall’s long road to the 1954 Supreme Court decision overturning school segregation.
In 1936, William Gibbs, a teacher and acting principal of the Rockville Rosenwald elementary school, filed a lawsuit against the county school board over the unequal salaries paid to black teachers. Mr. Gibbs, who received $612 a year, compared to $1,175 paid to a similarly experienced white teacher, was represented by a young Thurgood Marshall—just a few years out of law school. The school board filed a motion to have the case dismissed outright, but the county judge, recognizing the significance of the case, asked two other judges from a neighboring county to join him; ultimately the three-judge panel rejected the county’s attempt to quash the case in June 1937.
William Gibbs – courtesy of Peerless Rockville
Thurgood Marshall in 1936 –
Courtesy of Library of Congress
“This landmark decision marked the first time that any court in the nation had found that black professionals with the same experience and credentials as white professionals had the right to equal pay,” said Larry Gibson, professor at the University of Maryland (UMD) School of Law and author of Young Thurgood, a biography of the future Supreme Court justice focusing on his early career. The case thus represents Thurgood Marshall’s first legal victory involving public school segregation (he had earlier succeeded in forcing the UMD law school to admit a black student—his first legal victory on the graduate school level). “It all began in Rockville, Maryland,” concluded Gibson, referring to the ensuing legal battle against public school segregation throughout the South.
Larry S. Gibson – courtesy of Larry S. Gibson (website)
Following the hearing in the teacher pay case, the county school board agreed to equalize salaries within two years, but William Gibbs was fired over his qualifications to serve as acting principal. Decades later, the county named one of its elementary schools for him.
Gibbs Elementary School today – courtesy of Montgomery County Public Schools
The April 19 Rosenwald screening was co-sponsored by Peerless Rockville, a nonprofit historic preservation organization, and the Universities at Shady Grove, a UMD branch campus. A total of 17 Rosenwald schools were built in Montgomery County, Maryland—including the first high school for African American students in 1927, next to the Rockville Rosenwald grade school where William Gibbs taught. Neither building remains, but 5 others in the county still stand, including the Smithville Rosenwald School which has been restored as a museum/community center.
Rockville Rosenwald school – courtesy of Peerless Rockville
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