Rosenwald Schools

Society Hill’s was one of over 5,000 Rosenwald schools built.

By Alexandria Swain

In 1915, Sears and Roebuck President, Julius Rosenwald, established a fund that would provide grants to African-Americans to build schools. It was clear that there was an extreme need, so Rosenwald took matters into his hands to give back in some way. Between 1917 and 1932, over 5,000 schools were built in the South to educate African-American children. Rosenwald made it clear that he had a plan and wanted all buildings to follow a certain structure and development crafted by the architects and educators at Tuskegee. The Julius Rosenwald Fund also required a match from the local school districts as well as the local African-American community. A total of 15 states participated in the school construction program. One of these schools was the Julius Rosenwald Consolidated School, Society Hill, built in 1930. It was one of almost 500 schools in South Carolina funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. A frame industrial education building was added in 1936. This particular school consolidated students from three rural schools in the Society Hill area and provided education for kids in 1st through 10th grades. Eventually, 11th grade was added in 1939 and 12th grade added nearly 10 years later in 1948. This changed the landscape of the rural South. 

In 1953, during the state school equalization campaign meant to forestall desegregation, Rosenwald Consolidated School became a high school and a new Rosenwald Elementary School was built in 1954. Rosenwald Consolidated School received accreditation following World War II. Once the building transitioned into becoming a high school, it became desegregated in 1970 amongst other schools in the South. The high school closed in 1982 and the school building was sold and used for storage. 

At a time when State support for educating African-American children was devastatingly inadequate, Rosenwald Schools played a massive role in educating South Carolina’s children. Even though over one-third of black children in the South in the first half of the twentieth century attended one of the Rosenwald schools, today, many of these schools have disappeared from the community and no longer exist. In South Carolina, many became victims of neglect and abandonment as a result of the School Equalization Program, started in 1951 under Governor James Byrnes, which consolidated rural black schools by building state-of-the-art new black schools in an effort to offset integration. Other Rosenwald schools have been severely altered or gone altogether. 

Rosenwald Elementary School on Church Street added 6th – 8th grades in 2006 and is now Rosenwald Elementary and Middle School. High School students in Society Hill attend schools in nearby Darlington. 

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Sources: 

https://greenbookofsc.com/locations/rosenwald-consolidated-school-rosenwald-high-s chool/ 

https://www.scpictureproject.org/darlington-county/rosenwald-consolidated-school.ht ml 

https://scdah.sc.gov/historic-preservation/resources/african-american-heritage/rosen wald-schools 

Photo Credit – Shenandoah National Park Trust

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