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| Rosenwald Schools in Adams County |
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| In 1911, Booker T. Washington, President of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, asked Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish Philanthropist, to serve on the board of directors at Tuskegee. Their unique partnership led to the creation of the Rosenwald Fund (1917) to support the education of African American children in the South, where rural, segregated schools severely suffered from inadequate facilities and books. The Rosenwald Fund’s school-building program encouraged and helped organize local collaboration between Black and White communities for the common good. The Fund gave matching grants and provided technical support. Local communities raised funds together with public funds for school construction.
When the Rosenwald Fund closed in 1948, it enabled the construction of over 4,977 schools in 15 southern states. 1/3 of all Black children attended a Rosenwald School. 637 Rosenwald schools were built in Mississippi.
Adams County had five Rosenwald schools: Fitts, Kingston, Milford, Pine Mount, and Roseland schools. The modest rural schools were constructed between 1921 and 1927. They provided locally accessible educational opportunities,helping alleviate the extreme overcrowding of the few Adams’ Black schools, such as Union. The Union School in Natchez, Principled by George Washington Brumfield in 1925, had 948 children, with as many as 120 children crowded into a single room.
Erected 2025 by Natchez Association for the Preservation of Afro-American Culture, Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Regions Financial.
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