Rosenwald Schools Changed Communities

Picture courtesy of the LOC and photogrammar.yale.edu: 1940 photo taken by Marion Post Wolcott, FSA photographer, in Caswell County, NC

Recently, I was looking through the thousands of Farm Security Administration images available from the Library of Congress and Yale's photogrammar.yale.edu website. Although my focus was on selecting images of sharecroppers at work for my current documentary, I came across this wonderful image.  It shows an important intersection of community building and historic African American schools.  

The farmers are meeting in a schoolhouse for, Ms. Wolcott's caption tells us, "a neighborhood land use planning committee."  By the time of this meeting in1940, soil conservation programs had been underway for almost a decade.  The goal of these programs was to combat erosion through improved management practices.  Financial incentive was also provided for planting trees on depleted cropland. These payments were supposed to benefit everyone who was impacted, but in reality few landowners shared the money and many tenant farmers were pushed off of the land.  It is impossible to say with certainty whether the farmers in this picture are landowners or tenant farmers, but their well dressed appearance and the fact that they are attending a land planning meeting argues for them being owners.

Taking note of their surroundings, one can see the windows are large and have three panes across. This fact, along with the attractive beadboard and the patent desks, leads me to conclude that they were probably meeting in one of Caswell County's six Rosenwald schools.  The space is conducive to learning and discussion, and the farmers are listening attentively.  Note also the poised leader of the meeting, and the young lady taking notes. 

This was not an accidental meeting, but rather the confluence of sacrifice for education and powerful intentions on the part of both the community and the Rosenwald Fund. Between 1924 and 1931, Caswell County, NC communities organized to match grants and built six Rosenwald schools. The schools were designed not just to improve education in the rural South, but also to provide African American communities with their first public meetings spaces outside of churches.  In this photo of such a meeting, we get a rare glimpse of one of the myriad ways Rosenwald schools benefited communities in addition to providing space for teaching.

In planning for better land use, these African American farmers were also planning for the future of their community. Better crops meant a higher standard of living, and would also have made it possible for them to continue to make donations to their children's schools.  Well into the 1950s, African American families paid their taxes and then also had to raise money for education basics such as books and buses.  

For example, one story that I heard from several people locally was also documented by Dr. Melton A. McLaurin in his book The Black Marines of Montford Point (2009, UNC Press).  Apparently, the African American families who lived on the eastern side of Pender County were told they must raise money for a bus if they wanted their children to have transportation to one of the two African American high schools in the county.  After the families raised money and obtained a new bus, someone at the county bus garage tried to switch it with an old bus and give the new one to white students.  In the end the African American families prevailed, but only after a struggle.

Farming and sharecropping were the economic backdrop against which most Rosenwald schools were constructed. We can develop a better understanding of Rosenwald school history by pausing to contemplate the larger agenda the Rosenwald Fund had for these school buildings, that they would uplift the whole community.  In this image we can also see a combination of hope and gravity on the part of farmers, most of whom probably attended one the six Rosenwald schools in Caswell County, as they meet and make a cooperative plan.

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School Reflections: Documentation &

 Preservation" by Claudia Stack  

  

RESCHEDULED to Sunday, Nov. 1st: Rosenwald School Film Showing/Fundraiser at Willard Outreach Community Center

Willard Outreach Community Center is generously hosting this film showing/fundraiser to benefit three Pender Rosenwald schools; please see info below:

Film Showing/Fundraiser of "Carrie Mae: An American Life"  to Preserve
Pender County’s Historic Watha, Union
Chapel and Lee Rosenwald Schools
Sunday, Nov. 1st, 2015 from 3:00­ 4:30pm
Willard Outreach Community Center
9955 NC Hwy. 11 Willard NC 28478
Suggested Donation: $5/Adult­ $1/Child
“Carrie Mae: An American Life” (2014, Written and directed by Claudia Stack) is a documentary featuring the life of Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk, who attended and taught in Rosenwald schools before becoming one of Pender’s first African­American teachers to integrate a white faculty in 1966. This film screened at the 2015 National Trust for Historic Preservation Rosenwald School Conference and is an International
Independent Film Awards Bronze Winner (2015).
This event sponsored by Willard Outreach Community Center, Claudia Stack, the Old Skool Car Club (Watha School), Mr. James Fullwood (Union Chapel School) & Mr. McKinney Pickett (Lee School). All proceeds benefit Rosenwald School preservation. Please call Claudia Stack (910) 264­4469 if you need more information. 

Country Roads and Rosenwald Schools

One of my favorite things to do is drive out on country roads to see old farm houses and farm buildings. Working on my current documentary, which is about sharecropping, gives me the perfect excuse to spend time photographing these humble structures before they are lost to time.  Above is an old farm house in northern Pender County, which was built for a landowner's family but was later occuppied by tenant farmers.  Sharecropping and tenant farming was the backdrop against which most Rosenwald schools were built (see Stack's Rosenwald school documentaries).  

There should be a name for this fascination with the structures that tell the stories of our ancestors.  Well, "fascination" is a gentle way to put it.  It segues easily into obsession.  At any rate, I am on a mission to document the lives of early 20th century farmers, particularly sharecroppers and tenant farmers.  They did not own their land and sometimes were barely able to eke out a living.  Yet if you talk with my 80-something year old friends today, you won't hear any self-pity.  Rather, they take pride in their resilience. 

There is an element of faith that is central to most of their stories.  The widowed mother/sharecropper praying over the sick mule.  The boy who checks his rabbit boxes with trembling hands, hoping against hope to find something he can contribute to the family table.  As they tell it there was an ease and a naturalness to their appeals.  They had conviction, then and now, that God walks with them in their hardship.  They know we weren't promised anything except grace.  Somehow it was enough.  

The Mountain They Must Climb

NEW!!!  Rosenwald school documentaries now available for online streaming, just click the film titles below:

Carrie Mae: An American Life (just featured at the 2015 NTHP Rosenwald School conference): This documentary follows the life of Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk, who was educated in a Rosenwald school and in 1966 became one of the first African American teachers in SENC to integrate a white faculty

Under the Kudzu (screened at the 2012 NTHP Rosenwald School conference): This documentary traces the history of two schools that African American communities helped to build during the segregation era

A few years ago I had a student who everyone loved.  He was polite, he worked hard, and he had the sweetest smile. Then everything changed overnight.  He lashed out, put his head down during lessons, got in fights with other students.  I was very worried, but I couldn't reach his mother and he wouldn't talk to the school counselor.  At first he said he was "fine." After two weeks he pulled me aside and whispered the truth: His family had been evicted, and he was living in a car with his mother and four sisters.  The stress and shame had overwhelmed him to the point that it warped his personality.

Imagine that you are homeless, but that you are still expected to work and function at your normal level.  If you do not manage to perform well you will bump up against disciplinary structures.  If you yell or lash out you might even find yourself involved in the criminal justice system, like a child who loses control at school and ends up in the back of a police cruiser.  My point is not that we should allow out of control behavior in school, but that when children exhibit such behaviors compassion needs to work alongside discipline.

Most of the time students' lack of focus or self-control doesn't stem from situations as extreme as homelessness, but from continual, lower-grade stress.  When parents have to work two or three low-wage jobs to keep the family going, children feel direct effects from their stress and the lack of parental time. When there is food insecurity in a household, children are stressed.  When gunfire is routine in a neighborhood, children are stressed. As the National Institutes of Health noted in 2012:  

"High levels of stress hormones influence the developing circuitry of children's brains, inhibiting such higher cognitive functions such as planning, impulse and emotional control, and attention. Known collectively as executive functions, these mental abilities are important for academic success."  (from www.nih.com/news/health accessed 7/26/15)

The list of potential stressors is endless, and not all of them relate to poverty, but poor children do often carry a high burden of stress.  While the sources of stress are complex and many, antidotes are refreshingly simple.  As Ungar notes in the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies (2013), "...relationships are crucial to mitigating the negative impact of toxic environments."   (from http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ijcyfs/article/viewFile/12431/3767 accessed 7/26/15)  

So a positive bond with even one adult has a protective effect. Likewise, addressing food insecurity, a lack of affordable housing and the problem of a minimum wage that does not allow working parents to provide for their families would all be important steps forward for children.  It's simple, it's just not easy.

After my student told me the truth, that his family was homeless, I immediately spoke to our school's social worker. It turned out that the social worker at his younger sister's elementary school had already alerted the county DSS, and soon after that they had temporary housing. In this situation the system worked as it was supposed to and provided relief for the family, although it was several more months before his mother was able to find permanent housing.  My student's behavior troubles subsided, but in the time that I knew him he never regained his former focus.  I also had to try much harder to get him to smile. 

Something that is hard to convey to people who have never taught in high-poverty schools, or experienced the stress of poverty themselves, is just how high a mountain we ask poor children (20% of American children live in poverty) to climb. Why do we expect children to stay focused, positive and obedient through situations that would unravel most adults?   

  

       

NEW!! Under the Kudzu and Carrie Mae: An American Life Now Available for Streaming on Vimeo

Under the Kudzu, the story of two Rosenwald schools, and Carrie Mae: An American Life are now available for streaming ($3.99) on Vimeo.  Here are the links to the VOD pages:

Carrie Mae: An American Life (just featured at the 2015 NTHP Rosenwald School conference)

Under the Kudzu (screened at the 2012 NTHP Rosenwald School conference)

UNCW Rosenwald School Conference April 10, 2015

Leading into the June, 2015 NTHP Rosenwald School Conference in Durham, UNC Wilmington will host a one day conference on Friday, April 10, 2015.  Keynote speaker is Carole Boston Weatherford, and the day will include a screening of my new film "Carrie Mae: An American Life," a panel discussion with former Rosenwald school teachers, and much more!  Lunch is included for the modest $20 registration ($15 for seniors).  Link below for more information and for registration!

2015 UNCW Rosenwald School Conference