This event has been rescheduled from its original date of January 6, 2022. We kindly ask that anyone wishing to attend please RSVP below regardless of whether you RSVP’d for this event the first time around.

Born to Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and turn it into the world’s largest retailer. Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with black communities across the segregated South to build public schools for African American children. This watershed moment in the history of philanthropy—one of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans—drove dramatic improvement in African American educational attainment and fostered the generation who became the leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights movement.

Over the next 25 years, 4,978 Rosenwald schools would be built across the country.  Today, about 500 still remain. A few remain active schools, some have been repurposed, but many remain untouched and on the risk of collapse. To tell this story visually, Andrew Feiler drove more than twenty-five thousand miles, photographed 105 schools, and interviewed dozens of former students, teachers, preservationists, and community leaders across 15 states. He will join us at WHC for our first Amram Scholar Series lecture of 2022 to share more about his mission to document this important piece of American history.

This program is free and open to the entire community. For those wishing to join us virtually, a livestream will be available. That link will be distributed upon RSVP.

RSVP

About the Author

Andrew Feiler is a fifth-generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he has been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South. Andrew has long been active in civic life. He has created numerous community initiatives, serves on multiple not-for-profit boards, and is an active advisor to political leaders. His art is an extension of his civic values.

Please click here to purchase Feiler’s book through WHC’s Mitzvah Mall

Presented in partnership with the Jewish Book Council.