The Rosenwald Fund school project faced criticism from white Southerners who were irritated that black schools should receive support over white schools. The first two schools supported by the Rosenwald Fund were built near Tuskegee. Washington persuaded Rosenwald to extend his support to allow for the construction of houses for teachers in rural communities. After that point local organizations were to assume support for these schools. Rosenwald also stipulated that the support would last for thirty years only. Rosenwald determined to support black education through Alabama at first and eventually across the entire region by providing funds for the construction of rural schools and for teacher salaries and school supplies. He also observed that support for black educational opportunities in the South was compromised by the racial policies of white supremacy. Rosenwald held education in high regard and considered it the key to African American progress. In 1911, however, after reading Washington’s autobiography, Up From Slavery, he persuaded other wealthy white philanthropists to join him in setting aside a portion of the funds they donated to Tuskegee to be used to build black schools in rural Alabama. Washington and at the time a member of the Tuskegee Institute Board of Trustees. ![]() Rosenwald was a friend and admirer of Booker T. Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) was a multimillionaire Jewish merchant and one of the founders of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, then the largest department store in the United States. Although the first schoolhouses were completed in 1912, the Rosenwald Fund was officially established in 1917 and was used primarily to fund projects to enhance education for blacks, especially in the South. The Julius Rosenwald Fund schools were built across the South beginning in 1912 with money donated from businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald.
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