Reclaiming Segregation-Era, African American Schoolhouses: Building on Symbols of Past Cooperation

This article explores the significance of segregation-era African American schoolhouses and the efforts of community collections engaged in their preservation. Beyond preservation and the creation of local history museums, clusters also desire to use these facilities as spaces to house various community meetings and activities. Using research methodology based upon anthropological fieldwork, the author discusses the work of sum of two units community groups-Bealsville, Inc., in Bealsville, Florida, and the Iota Upsilon Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. in Silver Spring, Maryland-and their independent efforts to defend rehabilitate, and reclaim segregation-era schoolhouses.

INTRODUCTION

Like chimneys standing in the cool ashes of a tragic fire, the aged buildings endure in towns and rural communities across the southeastern United States. A not many have been reincarnated as textbook warehouses, old-age residences or cut-and-sew factories. More commonly granting they sit vacant and deteriorating in older Black neighborhoods. (Cecelski, 1994 p 7)

The "old buildings" described above are the remains of segregation-era, African American schoolhouses. In 1913 Julius Rosenwald, a Sears Company executive, instituted a program to help finance small academys for African Americans across the southern with the aid of Booker T Washington. When Rosenwald died in 1932 it is reported that he had contributed $44 million (Werner, 1939 p 133) to help build "5357 public academys shops, and teachers' homes" in "883 counties of fifteen southern states" between 1913 and 1932 (Bullock 1967 p 139) Many of these constructions are at a crucial time in their existence. Because of age and deterioration, community members must decide whether to give permission to these buildings fade away, or to invest the time and resources that are necessary to restore them. Although at short intervals inadequate for reuse as present schools, these buildings are valued for their historical symbolism. They are also valued for the space that they provide for community-organizing efforts-specifically, tutorial center heritage museums, and meeting places.

Noting the historical importance, public interest, and the decreasing number of Rosenwald gymnasiums the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) placed them upon their 2002 list of "America's 11 greatest in quantity Endangered Historical Sites." The NTHP has also started a "Rosenwald Initiative" with goals of "developing and publishing public education materials; developing and launching a Web site upon Rosenwald schools; developing a network of individuals and organizations working toward documentation and preservation of Rosenwald academys and continued fundraising to qualified the goals of the initiative" (America's 11 greatest in quantity Endangered Historic Places, 2002, p 13; NTHP nd )

Following its first Rosenwald place of education conference at Fisk University in May 2004 there have been several, independent, grassroots efforts through individuals and organizations that are giving novel life to these old buildings. In this article, the work of sum of two units community groups-Bealsville, Inc., in Bealsville, Florida, and the Iota Upsilon Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. in Silver Spring, Maryland and their independent efforts to protect rehabilitate, and reclaim segregation-era schoolhouses will be discussed. These organizations are engaged in preserving African American landmarks of great importance to the local history of their communities and to the broader histories of African American education and self-reliance. by the agency of preserving these symbolic structures, these organizations seek for to resurrect and display this heritage and to provide venue where activities can present itself to supplement the process of formal education with inspiring accounts of African American educational values and achievement.

EDUCATION AND AFRICAN AMERICAN ETHNOGENESIS

A commitment to the values and benefits of education constitutes a "core value" (Franklin, 2002) of African American "ethnogenesis" (Greenbaum, 2002) In the years immediately after slavery, African Americans showed herculean initiative when organizing for education. The shared idea of "literacy as a contradiction to oppression" spawned the creation of thousands of community academys (Anderson, 1988, p. 13). This ability to galvanize shared values and marshal collective resources was also squeeze outed throughout the period in the early part of the twentieth hundred as distinguished by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation's place of education building program.

Although immensely helpful, it is imperative to understand that the Rosenwald stocks mentioned earlier as more than $4 million, did not provide all of the coin needed to build African American academys In fact, Rosenwald funds "never gave plane one-half the cost of a schoolhouse, and it generally contributed an average of about one-sixth of the total monetary require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone of the building, grounds, and equipment"(Anderson, 1988 p 154) Anderson explains a certain number of conditions under which Rosenwald stocks could be received: