The Edgard Rosenwald School
What are the Rosenwald Schools?
The Rosenwald Schools were a network of schools established in the early 20th century to improve educational opportunities for Black children in the segregated South.
Booker T. Washington, a prominent Black educator and leader, envisioned better education, economic self-sufficiency, and community development for African Americans.
To bring this vision to life, he met with Julius Rosenwald, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, to develop a program that would fund and build these schools for rural Black communities.
Their initiative brought over 5,000 Rosenwald Schools across the South, with 422 built in Louisiana.
Map of Rosenwald Schools across the country, 1932, National Museum of African American History and Culture, https://www.searchablemuseum.com/rosenwald-schools-2/.
USGS, Garyville Map 1949, https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#15/30.0453/-90.5696.
The Edgard Rosenwald School
The Edgard Rosenwald School was one of two original Rosenwald Schools in St. John the Baptist Parish. To secure funding for its construction, the surrounding communities petitioned both the Louisiana Department of Education and the Tuskegee Institute for support.
Typically, funding for Rosenwald Schools came from four sources: the Black community, the white community, the Rosenwald Fund, and the Parish.
However, the Edgard Rosenwald School received funding from only three sources:
The Rosenwald Fund: $800 (equivalent to $14,955.67 today).
St. John the Baptist Parish: $700 ($13,086.21 today).
The Wallace and Edgard: 1,500 ($28,041.88 today).
Deliberate Sabotage
White communities rarely contributed funding for Rosenwald Schools when they were built near plantations. In the early 20th century, white plantation owners depended on Black labor to cultivate sugar and cotton and sought to limit educational opportunities for Black children to maintain control over the labor force.
On May 27, 1923, the Louisiana Department of Education in Baton Rouge wrote to Francis W. Shepardson, Secretary of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, regarding concerns raised by a community in Terrebonne Parish.
The superintendent of Terrebonne Parish failed to complete the construction of a Rosenwald School, reportedly because he was "deterred either by prominent sugar planters in his parish, whose influence he feared, or by the influence of a neighboring superintendent who was distinctly hostile to Negro education."
Image of the Letter to Francois W. Shepardson, May 27, 1923, The Julius Rosenwald Fund, Microfilm Box 339, Folder Five, Amistad Research Center.
Fighting Back
However, Black community leaders near active plantations resisted efforts by wealthy white landowners to obstruct education by continuing to build schools and seeking alternative funding sources for the Rosenwald Schools.
Rev. Finnegan Hams, whose family had been formerly enslaved on the Calhoun Cotton Plantation, led the effort to construct a two-teacher Rosenwald School outside Morgan City after the local superintendent failed to act.
Similarly, Black community members in Edgard and Wallace collaborated with the Louisiana Department of Education and St. John the Baptist Parish to establish a school for Black children, overcoming deliberate opposition from white landowners and officials.
Sumpter Williams High School History, The Rev. Finnegan Hams, Sumpter Williams High School Memories, https://africanamericanhighschoolsinlouisianabefore1970.com/sumpter-williams-high-school-morgan-city-la/.