The Shiloh-Rosenwald School | The Shiloh Community Restoration Project

The Shiloh-Rosenwald School

The Shiloh Rosenwald School grew out of a partnership between African American educator Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears and Roebuck. Washington and Rosenwald were concerned about the state of education for Blacks in the South. In 1917, Rosenwald established the Julius Rosenwald Foundation for the “well being of mankind”. He donated millions of dollars to public schools, colleges and universities. Among those colleges was Tuskegee Institute, of which he became a Trustee. Amazingly, 5,300 rural schools and teachers’ homes were cooperatively built with assistance from the local African American communities. Donations of land and labor by the local community were matched by financial contributions from the Foundation. The Shiloh School was one of the first six schools built by the Rosenwald Foundation. In 2002, the Rosenwald Schools were put on a List of Eleven Endangered Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Today, many of these Rosenwald schools are gone, victims of changing times and communities. We encourage you to learn more by reading the Rosenwald School Description Diagram of Rosenwald School Plans.

a classrom at the Shiloh Rosenwald School