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Bonita Rosenwald School The history behind the vacant Rosenwald School is unique. Booker T. Washington, educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, came up with the innovative idea for a rural school building program to improve the quality of public education for African-Americans in the early 20th century South, and teamed up with a millionaire Jewish high school dropout named Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck and Co. Bastrop Daily Enterprise, July 2005 Every two years, former and current Morehouse Parish residents gather for a reunion of a school that closed its doors over 30 years ago. These former students are determined not to let the time come when the chronicles surrounding Bonita's Rosenwald School might be forgotten. "When I said I was going to my elementary school reunion, my friends laughed. They'd never heard of having an elementary school reunion," said Evelyn Ford Crayton, assistant director of Family and Community Programs for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University. Crayton was one of more than 100 alumni of the school who gathered in Bastrop over the weekend for the biannual reunion. The school, which opened its doors in 1923, afforded many Blacks living in the South their only opportunity for an education. It offered classes for students through the eighth grade, the place where the majority of students saw their education end. "A few families made arrangements for their children to stay with family members in Bastrop so they could go on to high school," said Vera Hill, vice-president of the Bonita Rosenwald Reunion Association. "I was lucky that I was able to stay with a cousin. But unfortunately, until the school board started running busses from Bonita and Jones to Bastrop, graduating eighth grade at Rosenwald was the limit for most of students." Eventually Union High School was built in Mer Rouge, and Bonita and Jones students were sent there to receive their high school education. Union was later renamed Delta High School. Hill said the odds were against the students. Yet many of them went on to get college degrees and to become successful. The notion of holding regular reunions came when a group gathered to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of former Rosenwald Ernest Choice. He encouraged his former students to put forth a similar effort to bring their classmates back to the community. Crayton said the school opened vistas for students that many of them never dreamed of. Even though, at the time, segregation was the accepted norm, the opportunities afforded students outweighed any negative connotations. "We read the book Moby Dick in school, then when the movie came out, our teacher took the whole class to see it," said Crayton. "We walked from the school to the theater up town. That was the first movie I ever saw. The blacks sat upstairs and the whites sat downstairs, but we didn't pay any attention to that." Crayton said she got a good education at Rosenwald. "They taught us citizenship - the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner, and there was an extension agent named Elsie J. Cyrus who taught us etiquette. John D. Andrews was an agent then too." Rosenwald alumnus Prentice Coleman with a master's degree in education psychology retired from the Dallas school system, and is now a Dallas Realtor, purchased the old school in Bonita. Due to its dilapidated state, Coleman made plans to tear the building down and replace it with something constructive, but because the building contains asbestos, Coleman was dismayed to receive a bid proposal of $50,000 for the safe removal and disposal of transite asbestos, asbestos floor tiles and mastic in the old school. "When I bought the old school building, my plans were to return something back to the local community. God has blessed my family and I wanted to do something for Bonita. I haven't decided what I will put up - something health related, educational or recreational," said Coleman. "I know I will need help to achieve my goal because of the asbestos. I'm in contact with political officials and intend to contact the Rosenwald Foundation. We will need contributions and assistance." The committee responsible for putting together the function is comprised of Cary James, president; Vera Hill, vice-president; Bettie King, secretary; Linda Jones, assistant secretary; Delois Christian, treasurer; John Carroll, assistant treasurer; Geneva Watson, historian; Idella Harris, decorating coordinator, Barbara Hill, Albirda Causey and Theola Crosby, members. The history behind the vacant Rosenwald School is unique. Booker T. Washington, educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, came up with the innovative idea for a rural school building program to improve the quality of public education for African-Americans in the early 20th century South, and teamed up with a millionaire Jewish high school dropout named Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck and Co. The Rosenwald Fund began in Alabama in 1913 with the construction of six small schools, and when it ended 1932 upon the death of Rosenwald, 4,977 schools, 217 teachers' homes, and 163 shop buildings had been constructed to serve 663,615 students in 883 counties of 15 states at a total cost of $28.4 million. The effort was termed "the largest school building program for African-Americans in the South since Reconstruction" and the "most influential philanthropic force that came to the aid of Negroes at that time." The Rosenwald Fund, as it was known, provided matching grants to construct the school buildings, teacher cottages and shops. Architectural plans initially were drawn by professors at Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The schools were built to several standardized plans - most very plain, ranging from small with two teacher units - to the largest, which housed seven teachers. These schools held a special place in the community because schools and churches were the only places where blacks could meet in the rural South before desegregation. The fund also subsidized low-cost school libraries, offering sets of carefully chosen works that included positive accounts of African-American history and culture. Rosenwald radios brought the news and culture of the nation into rural black schools and provided a source of information and entertainment. Starting in 1929, the fund offered to pay for buses to transport students to consolidated schools as an incentive for school boards to extend this service permanently. The Rosenwald Fund was devised as a self-help program. Washington preached gospel of self-help for black Southerners, emphasizing advancement through vocational education. African-Americans had to match the Rosenwald grants with cash and in-kind donations of material and labor for these schools to be constructed. Local school boards had to take ownership of the new schools and commit to maintaining them as a part of each public school system. Unfortunately, when schools were integrated, most of the schools constructed under the Rosenwald Fund were closed and over these past 75-85 years are vanishing. According to statistics, of the $28.4 million total, the Rosenwald Fund provided $4.3 million, blacks $4.7 million, local governments $18.1 million and whites $1.1 million. It was quite remarkable that rural Southern blacks raised $4.7 million, pointing to an ardent desire for an education. St. Joe African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bonita, celebrating its 132nd anniversary this year, originally donated two acres of land for the Bonita Rosenwald School to be built in 1922. The school in Bonita was erected between July 1, 1922 and June 30, 1923. Local African-Americans contributed $1,800; whites, nothing; Morehouse Parish, $700; and the Rosenwald Fund, $700, for a total cost of $3,200. It was built on Plan No. 20, the most common plan used, gave the appearance of a squat triangle with two classrooms. In 1954, with eight more acres purchased, the old two-room school was replaced with the current cinderblock building and another sort of legacy was put forth. The new building still carried the Rosenwald name but on a new structure. In the late 1940s and 1950s, southern states undertook massive school building campaigns in hopes of forestalling legal challenges to public school segregation. Desegregation, integration, and new building standards inspired further new school construction which inherited the Rosenwald name. While the new building in Bonita was no longer technically a Rosenwald school any longer, the association with the earlier Rosenwald program and survival of the Rosenwald name proclaims the importance to a community's identity and heritage. The architecture of the new school made a visual assertion of the equality of all children. Rosenwald schools remain an integral part of community life across the South, as is evidenced in Bonita first hand. The official Rosenwald Fund archives are held at Fisk University in Nashville and show that in Louisiana 393 schools, 31 homes, and nine shops were located all over the state. Currently, because of neglect, the schools having been abandoned or destroyed, and because most were located in rural areas with insufficient funds for upkeep, only two Rosenwald schools are actually known to have survived in recognizable form in Louisiana. There is a current movement - the Rosenwald Schools Initiative - to preserve the history of Rosenwald schools, teachers' homes and shops. The Initiative is working to build awareness of the plight of these fragile resources. The Division of Historic Preservation in Louisiana is seeking information on Louisiana Rosenwald schools. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named Rosenwald Schools to its list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2002. Another past student of Rosenwald, Samuel Dantzler of Los Angeles, purchased the old Bonita High School building and he has tentative plans to tear down the building and put up apartments and senior housing in a couple years. "I don't mean a nursing home, but apartments for seniors," Dantzler said. "I expect I will be faced with the same asbestos removal problem when the time comes." And so, never forgotten, this old school is still alive in memories and pictures in school yearbooks as a reminder of those golden years when chalk-dust filled the air and laughter and running feet echoed in the halls, and plans are already being made for the next Bonita Rosenwald reunion. By BARBARA SHARIK Mr. Prentice Coleman, Duncanville, Texas |
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