(tranquil music) - [Narrator] If you've spent any time driving the Virginia countryside, especially the back roads, you've probably seen school houses like these.

Their names, Hurt, Pine Grove, Scrabble, and Second Union, reflect their deep community roots, yet they're all linked by a shared history.

Collectively, they're known as Rosenwald schools.

They were built in the era before desegregation and integration.

Today, they stand as memorials to the decades-long struggle of African Americans for decent public schools.

They are survivors, offering testimony to a massive educational initiative that change the fortunes of thousands of African American children in Virginia.

These schoolhouses might even be called monuments with blackboards.

- I believe symbols matter.

And where we are in our country, monuments, public symbols have been used to divide us, but I also believe they can be used to unite us.

- When you think of rural African American communities, it's not hard to imagine them rallying around the building of a school.

They're thinking of the future generations.

They're not necessarily thinking of themselves in the present.

They're thinking of the future.

- When I presented our research at universities or conferences, I'd start by saying, this is probably the largest educational intervention you never heard of.

- [Dr. Valinda] And when you look at access to education, buildings are important, they say something, and Rosenwald Schools said something.

- [Curtis] Rosenwald schools are the physical representation of love for a future generation by our ancestors.

- I would say that they are monuments to Black excellence, because the community was so engaged in making sure that their children received an education that so many of them were denied.

(tranquil music) (bright music) - Now, I've been to St. Mark's Church over a hundred times from my childhood, coming down from New Jersey to Virginia for holidays, and I thought that building was an old shack.

And then, lo and behold, I discovered that it was the Carol Boyd School, which is where my grandfather, Levi Valentine, was educated and learned how to read.

I believe that we all have connections to spaces even after our ancestors have left.

And so, I'm standing in this place, and I could hear the children playing, I could hear the doors opening up, I could hear the creeks in the wood, and I just, I was taken aback to a place where I understood people, young people, were really envisioning their life and their future in this space.

I think Rosenwald schools are hidden gems, because many of them, only about a third of the Rosenwald schools in Virginia are still standing.

Of the 380 Rosenwald schools built in this state, two thirds are no longer here.

And those that are here sort of, I say gems, because they're hidden in plain sight.

- [Narrator] Virginia's Rosenwald schools were built between 1915 and 1932.

They can be found in 79 counties, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Eastern Shore.

The genesis of these schools goes back to a meeting between one of the Commonwealth's most famous native sons and one of the nation's wealthiest philanthropists, a Jewish businessman from Chicago.

- The relationship between Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington may seem dissimilar, but I think in many respects, the two men shared certain things in common.

They were both self-made men.

They were both minorities in a certain sense.

Rosenwald was a Jew.

Washington obviously was African American.

They both suffered to some degree from prejudice.

Although, Rosenwald really didn't suffer very much, to tell you the honest truth.

(rousing music) - [Narrator] Booker T. Washington did know suffering.

He was born into slavery, on a plantation in Franklin County.

- The Booker T. Washington National Monument preserves the 207 acre tobacco plantation that Booker T. Washington was born on in the spring of 1856, and where he was emancipated nine years later in April of 1865 during the end of the Civil War.

Booker T. Washington was exposed very early to inequality and racism here on the Burroughs farm.

He was not allowed to learn to read and write.

In fact, it was expressed to him that learning to read and write was dangerous for the enslaved.

One of the experiences that really stayed with Booker as a young man was escorting the Burroughs children to school, and carrying their meals and carrying their books, and looking into the schoolhouse, having to stay on the outside and not being allowed to go in and get the same education that the Burroughs children were allowed to have.

And he resolved at that young age that he wanted to learn how to read and write.

- [Narrator] Young Washington was not able to pursue that dream until years later, after emancipation, when he was living in West Virginia with his mother and stepfather, and working in a coal mine.

Washington heard about a school for African Americans that had opened in Hampton, some 400 miles away.

With the blessing of his mother, and just a few cents in his pocket, he set off for Hampton on a week's long journey, walking most of the way.

Booker T. Washington got the education he sought at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute.

The experience set the course for the rest of his life.

- Booker T. Washington's story is incredibly inspiring.

He's a self-made man.

He could have allowed his experience with slavery as a young child to weigh him down and to prevent him from becoming who he wanted to be, and he didn't.

He mastered self-discipline, and was indefatigable in the pursuit of what he wanted, which was, first and foremost, an education for himself, and then second, the ability of others to get that same education.

- Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee as a sort of model on Hampton Institute.

So in the 1880s and the 1890s, he begins to emerge as a major leader advocating this philosophy of education, and particularly pitching it to the northern philanthropists.

- Booker T. Washington had a vision to help his people, a vision that he had developed when he first came here to Tuskegee, a vision to provide for them a healthy hand, head, and heart, Hand having to do with work, head with education, and heart with the spiritual.

And Booker T. Washington realized that he couldn't do that alone and be successful without help.

And so he enlisted over the years, a variety of people to come here to work for him.

He got the cream of the crop to come here.

And in so doing, it drew attention to his work from entrepreneurs all over the United States.

- The basic thrust of the Washingtonian philosophy was that Black people needed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and that was the message he told Black people.

At the same time, he could also turn to White philanthropists and say, we're not challenging segregation, we're not challenging separate but unequal.

And Washington was a complicated person.

- [Narrator] Washington met Julius Rosenwald at a fundraising speaking engagement in Chicago.

Rosenwald was the CEO and part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company, the nation's best known retailer.

Though he didn't have a high school diploma, Rosenwald had deep respect for education, and cared deeply about his fellow human beings.

His Jewish faith professed that, as a person blessed with great wealth, he should apply some of those resources in service to others to repair the world.

It was a principle that he took to heart.

After their initial meeting, the two men talked far into the night at Rosenwald's home.

The result was an invitation for Rosenwald to join the Tuskegee Board of Trustees.

- Several months later, he took a train to Tuskegee, carefully arranging it, of course, and he went with his wife and one of his children, and his rabbi, who had been an inspiration to him.

And Booker T. Washington also had prepared things very carefully, and Rosenwald was extremely impressed by all that he saw at Tuskegee.

And so, at the end of the visit, he said that he would be glad to join the Board of Tuskegee.

- [Narrator] Booker T. Washington's college was one of the many established for African Americans in the South in the late 19th century.

Washington and Tuskegee had a mission.

- It was a school built to teach others to teach others.

It wasn't a school built to teach carpenters, and bricklayers, and mechanics.

No, it was to teach them to teach others.

So this school was predicated on this notion of teaching.

It was an educational philosophy that leads to something more out in the communities, and I think that that notion is what predicates this expansion of the Rosenwald schools to something more, and I think that's the brilliance of Julius Rosenwald.

He sees that.

He knows that, hey, this is something special, this is something I want to be a part of.

And he was, not because of wanting to just throw money at something.

It's because he saw that there was something fruitful that could come out of this, this experiment that we call Tuskegee (tranquil music) - [Narrator] Washington focused on a critical need in the South.

New State Constitutions required for readmission to the union guaranteed to all the right to public education, but reality fell short.

Many communities simply didn't provide schools for African-American children.

The schools that did exist often were little more than shacks.

Teachers were poorly trained, and school terms usually were scheduled around when children weren't needed to help in the fields.

Public schools for African-Americans in the Jim Crow South were so lacking because local school boards were controlled by Whites.

They directed most of the tax money for education to schools for White children.

Washington understood that the path to better lives for his people depended on education.

That meant proper schools for all African American children, staffed by well-trained teachers.

He pursued that goal relentlessly.

Rosenwald made his initial donation to Tuskegee in 1912.

- It was Rosenwald's 50th birthday, and he gave away a lot of money to a lot of different organizations, but one of the gifts that he made was $25,000 to Tuskegee for a fund which he and Booker T. Washington had talked about.

The fund was to be administered by Washington to give small grants to Black private schools in the South.

But Washington had another objective, which was to provide money for Black public schools in the South, and so, he asked Rosenwald if 10% of this $25,000 could be used to build six public schools in the vicinity of Tuskegee, and Rosenwald agreed to that.

So that's how the Rosenwald School Building Program really got started.

- [Narrator] $2,500, 10% of Rosenwald donation, was not enough to build six schoolhouses.

The Tuskegee plan called for the communities to be served to raise the balance needed.

The people, eager for their children to have schools to attend, responded.

It was a win-win approach, especially for the young students.

Based on that initial success, Rosenwald committed to a broader program to help build schools throughout the South.

It eventually led to the construction of nearly 5,000 schools in 15 states.

Counting teachers' homes and shop buildings, more than 5,300 structures were built.

The School Building Program first was administered from Tuskegee, where campus architect Robert Robinson Taylor drafted the plans for schoolhouses.

Taylor was the first African American to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the nation's first college educated African-American architect.

Taylor's designs were smart and practical.

The plans had common elements, whether for a one room school or a school with several classrooms.

All featured big windows to allow plenty of light and ventilation, important in the era before electrification.

- Those schools are amazing.

The thought that went into those schools was amazing.

The placement of the windows.

I mean, the details that were involved in order to make those a place that children wanted to come to learn.

This is something special, this is something different.

And Robert R. Taylor put a lot of thought into that work, just like he did in the buildings that still exists here on campus today.

- [Narrator] Following Washington's sudden death, in 1915, administration of the school building plan moved from Tuskegee to Rosenwald Fund offices in Nashville.

The architectural plans evolved to become even more innovative.

Always free and widely admired, they were also used to build schools for White students.

- When you think about the building of Rosenwald schools, you're talking about a time, and we're talking 1917 to about 1932 is the building of Rosenwald schools.

So you're talking about a Jim Crow era, and you're talking about a time where things are very unequal.

They're still unequal, but this is a special time, shall we say.

- In 1925, the state of Virginia spent approximately $10 per African-American school child and approximately $40 for each White school child.

- [Narrator] Washington and Rosenwald devised a clever, persuasive plan.

To qualify for a construction donation from the Rosenwald Fund, Southern school boards would have to spend more on schools and teachers for African-American students.

- The idea of matching grants was not Rosenwald's idea, but Rosenwald used it in a particularly interesting way.

He decided that a new formula had to be created, and he and Washington worked it out, and the idea was that he would give between a quarter and a third of the money.

50% had to come from public funds, state and local government.

The other pieces of the funding puzzle were the African Americans in the community themselves, and actually they provided more money for the schools overall than Rosenwald did, a fact which is often overlooked.

- So what has been done since the last time, Muriel, all the girders are in, all the girders.

This whole cloak room is all frame.

All the girders were completely rotten, and the whole thing had settled several inches down.

- A foot in some case.

- Wow.

- Wow.

- Then of course, we have all the finishes, the beadboard finishes that were originally on this wall, all been numbered and labeled over here, and they'll start to go back towards the end.

- Yeah, at the end of the... - And the chimney has been restored?

- Yes.

- Chimney's been replaced.

- Replaced, right.

Not just... And a lot of the old brick you used?

- Yep.

- I saved some brick for you too out there.

- Thank you.

- Pine Grove, like most of the Tuskegee Rosenwald schools, and I use that word intentionally, because Tuskegee is really the birthplace of our community schools.

So the correct name would be Tuskegee Rosenwald Community Schools, because they were in remote, rural communities.

We walked.

I walked three and a half miles to school, one way.

- The other thing unique about this school and why you can tell it's an early Rosenwald, there's no industrial room.

- No.

- And industrial rooms were required by Rosenwald Program later on.

- And the plan in industrial education, the one Booker T. Washington was able to make successful in the South, would also mean they would learn skilled trades.

- [Narrator] Industrial rooms were smaller spaces where students learned job skills.

Girls learned to cook, sew, and clean house.

Boys might learn woodworking, shoe repair, or farming skills.

Larger schools might have a dedicated shop building with mechanics tools and other equipment.

- What you're telling people is, this is the education that is suited for a particular group of people, service sector, manual labor sectors, this is your position, this is your station in life.

- So they were allowed, in this compromise, with enough skill to be employed by White people, but not so much education that they would be supervisors of White people.

- What I was told when I was growing up, that they were saying that African-American kids could not be taught, they could be trained.

So when Mr. Washington and Mr. Rosenwald got together, they said that we have to do something about this and they built over 5,000 schools in the South.

- Industrial education really had to do with industry and trying to increase the moral industry, the work ethic of African Americans.

So it was fundamentally very racist from a point of view of Whites versus Blacks.

- Now, that doesn't mean that Rosenwald schools didn't, the teachers, and I mean, the educators and the principals in those Rosenwald schools didn't go beyond those boundaries.

- But the interesting thing about it is it became a vehicle for money to come into Black schools.

It was money that was funneled into Black schools.

So African Americans accepted it, I think, as a way basically to get resources they didn't have otherwise - Oppressed people always find a way around something.

They wanted a nice school, right?

So they got a nice school.

And so, in my oral interviews, I've had people talk about, "Yes, we had those ironing boards.

White superintendent comes by and he sees ironing boards, and irons, and wash tubs, and yes, that's what we're learning, not."

You only pull those out when you see somebody coming a mile away on the dirt road.

Nobody sneaks up on a rural schoolhouse.

And so, you have them teaching Latin, you have them teaching algebra, you have them teaching almost any subject, history, any subject.

They also teach reading, writing, and arithmetic.

But by the time you get to the 1920s and 30s, you're looking at schools that can teach a multitude of subjects, not just the ones that you're supposed to be teaching.

- We had the basic classes, and the girls only took home ec, two years of home ec, that's all the girls took.

And the boys took industrial art and agriculture, just the basic courses.

And of course, we had French.

- [Narrator] The school building plan put forth by Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald depended on committed people at the state and local level for success.

In hundreds of communities, local people sprang into action when they learned that there was an opportunity to get a new school built.

Lucille Hudson was a lifelong resident of Mecklenburg County, and a career educator.

When she was a child, her much older sister taught in a typically substandard schoolhouse.

- Pretty soon, she found out about this possibility of a school being built through the Rosenwald funds, and to raise the money that was requested of the parents, she would have what they call a feast every Saturday night to raise money to fill in the gap for the parents in that area.

I could tell you a lot about that because she used me and a lot of other students my age to do little programs and sing songs to entertain the people while this was happening, until she raised enough money that our area was required to donate to help build this Rosenwald school.

It took a while, and I remember we had some of the best food from the parish in that area, because they were trying, I don't usually show of, they'd bring their best fried chicken, that would sell, they brought any kind of of meats that were available at that time, hog meat or whatever, ham, and, well, I won't go into detail because it make me hungry, but anyway, that was one of the main things that would bring in money for Cook School.

Cook School became a Rosenwald school because we did raise enough money by the parents, the School Board gave their third, and Rosenwald gave the other third.

- [Narrator] At the state level, three Virginians had particularly influential roles in African-American education during that era.

Jackson Davis was a young administrator who rose to leadership positions within Virginia and beyond.

Virginia Randolph was an exemplary teacher who became a role model for African American teachers throughout the South.

Thomas Calhoun Walker was born into slavery.

He attended Hampton Institute and returned to Gloucester County to become a teacher, and education advocate, and a lawyer.

A dynamic individual, he was a promoter of self-sufficiency and land ownership for African Americans.

- Jackson Davis is from Southwest Virginia.

Attended William & Mary.

Initially started his career as a school principal.

At a young age, became superintendent of schools for the county of Henrico, and then entered into a number of positions with the State Department of Public Instruction, and with some of the educational organizations that were created by Northern Philanthropies.

- And he served a key role in terms of funneling money to Black schools that they had not had under state support.

- He's most well known in Virginia for his collection of photographs that were taken of schools all over the state in the early 20th century.

And notably, Jackson Davis captured, recorded, and preserved a visual record of the disparities that existed between Black and White schools in Virginia at the time.

- [Narrator] Davis understood the power of photography to build a case and influence others.

His photos spoke eloquently about the status of rural African American schools.

He also documented the changes he helped bring about.

One person who posed for Davis's camera was Virginia Randolph.

- Virginia Randolph was born in 1870, just after the Civil War.

Her parents stressed to her the importance of education, particularly her mother, and she carried that with her.

- 1892 when she came into Enrico County to teach at this one room school called the Melton Road School, I think she did a phenomenal job, but she also had to have the certain temperament that she had, and I'm pretty sure that her mother and father helped her with that, since they were slaves.

- [Narrator] Randolph took it upon herself to improve the appearance and conditions at Melton Road School.

She used money from her $25-a-month salary to buy gravel for the school's muddy lane.

She knew that appearances mattered.

She whitewashed the building, and planted trees and flowers.

- She got parents to come in and eventually got the community involved.

Gave that 750 for putting gravel so the kids wouldn't have to walk in the mud.

That kind of changed things.

- [Narrator] Randolph's efforts immediately captured the attention of the new Henrico school superintendent, Jackson Davis.

- And she knew that improving the communities could start with having good schools for the children within that community, and then involving the parents to make sure that it was consistent and that the message was the same, that you need to work hard, you can learn the reading and the writing, but you also need to develop some sort of a skill.

- [Narrator] Davis saw that Randolph's methods and results could be a model for other African-American teachers.

They also aligned with the philosophy of Booker T. Washington and the interests of northern philanthropists, including Anna T. Jeanes.

Jeanes was a Philadelphia Quaker who inherited a family fortune.

She endowed a fund to support rural elementary schools in the South, primarily schools for African-American students.

In 1908, Jackson Davis requested Jeanes's fund money to help pay the salary of a model supervising teacher.

This roving teacher would travel throughout Henrico County and beyond, advising other African American teachers on becoming more skillful and effective.

With that, Virginia Randolph became the first in a corps of Jeanes's teachers across the South, making an additional $40 a month.

- And it was an opportunity for her to share all of her vision, and it just was so impressive to leaders in education at the time that it not only resonated across the South, it was used in countries all over the world, and became known as the Henrico Plan.

- [Narrator] Today, the Virginia Randolph Museum stands on the grounds of the Old Melton Road School, on a campus that once held an African-American high school named in her honor.

(tranquil music) - I knew T.C.

Walker all of my early life.

He was quite a figure in Gloucester, and that is such a picture of him.

He looked exactly like that.

I can see him now pointing that cane.

He only stood about 4'8" or something like that.

He was diminutive in height, but he was very much a presence.

- Oh, T.C.

Walker was important in so many ways.

He returned, after going to Hampton Institute, with Booker T. Washington being his mentor.

- He went to homes all throughout the whole county, and he would encourage them to have a garden and to own their own homes.

- He taught not only reading and writing, but later, when he became a lawyer, he encouraged his fellow Black citizens to buy land, and they bought land.

They called him Buy Land Walker.

- He was very focused, very dynamic, and he was convinced that there was a better life and a better way of living for the African Americans in Gloucester.

His focus was primarily on land ownership.

He's known for that.

But his belief was that if you owned land, you owned power.

- He was his own bank in his suit pockets.

He would lend money to those who needed loans to buy land, buy land, farm it, be self-sufficient.

So they did.

And in 1930, the census says that in Gloucester County, there were more Black owned farms than in any state in the Union.

- He was such an imposing figure.

And when he spoke, people listened.

- [Narrator] Walker didn't attend law school.

Instead, as was the custom in those days, he read law, and studied under William Booth Toliver, a lawyer, and former Confederate general.

Walker passed the bar in 1887, becoming the first African-American attorney in Gloucester County.

Soon, he was known throughout Virginia as Lawyer Walker.

- T.C.

Walker approached the school board in Gloucester County to ask them to participate and partner with Julius Rosenwald because he knew about the Rosenwald school effort.

And he went back to them more than once, two or three years in succession, and was unsuccessful.

- When the Gloucester School Board turned down funds for Black schools, Lawyer Walker put on his hat, got on the train, and went out to Chicago.

He got an appointment with Julius Rosenwald.

- He convinced Rosenwald, a hard-nosed businessman, to break his business model and come, on Walker's invitation, not the county's, Walker's invitation to come to Gloucester, bring his project to Gloucester.

Somehow or another, he pulled that off.

I still am searching for how that conversation went.

- And so, Lawyer Walker came home and he did.

He went to every Black meeting, Black church, White church, White meetings.

He got the money, and those schools were built, six of them in Gloucester, with a teachers house.

Astounding accomplishment.

- [Narrator] T.C.

Walker's involvement with Rosenwald school projects ranged far beyond Gloucester County.

From 1920 to 1932, he served as the Commonwealth's Rosenwald Building Agent.

A building agent was the most senior post open to an African American in the state's Department of Education.

It was a critical job, providing the link between Rosenwald Fund administrators and local activities.

It meant Walker was deeply engaged in community fundraising, negotiating with White school leaders, and construction oversight.

The Woodville School, built in 1923, is the only surviving Rosenwald School of the six built in Gloucester County.

The building spent 40 years as a residence, before restoration.

- I realized that as they looked at the number of African Americans who were originally in Gloucester, and the impact they had on this community was rapidly being lost.

When you can go from 60 or 80% down to 10 or 13%, you've lost the history.

So we felt that this was truly a monument to the background and the history and the African-American story.

- [Narrator] The Cape Charles Business District is just a half mile from Cape Charles Elementary.

It was built in 1928, across the tracks.

To get to school, many students had to make the walk over a steep railroad overpass.

- The name of my school was Cape Charles Elementary School, and we lovingly referred to it as the school over the hump, which was next to the town dump.

Cape Charles Elementary School was actually located on the outskirts of town, of the town of Cape Charles.

It was located in front of the city dump, which we had to cope with those smells every day.

- [Narrator] Scrabble School nestles on a wooded hillside in Rappahannock County, while Second Union sits next to its namesake church in Goochland County.

Each of these community schools has a unique story.

But no matter which school alumni attended, they share many experiences.

- My wife, for example, is from Georgia.

But when we talk about how we grew up, what our parents did, you'd think that we live next door to each other.

So when you talk about the education, the Rosenwald schools and so forth, you're gonna find that we have a lot in common throughout each state.

- [Narrator] These experiences included long walks to school, and in the later decades, even longer bus rides, parents who trusted in education as the way forward even though many of them had little schooling, and an environment that nurtured self-confidence and the character to succeed.

- I lived on Plum Street, and yes, we had to walk over the hump every day in all types of weather, sunshine, rainy, snow, but it was the best walk ever, the best walk ever, because I enjoyed going to school.

- And I'll say this in regards to the education that you received here was second to none, because the teachers made sure that no student was left behind.

They worked with you and made sure that you got your work.

And I'll say this in regards to the school, reading and comprehension was one of the things I found that was very successful to me going forward in the Air Force.

- But the fact that we had educated people teaching us gives us the edge, and it kind of sends us out on another path.

And just the fact that they are educated gives us inspirations, and it gives us goals.

We want to be like this person.

- They were dedicated teachers.

They had very strict standards and very high expectations.

- And the teachers made sure that you got everything that you needed to prepare you for life going forward.

- For me to get up in the morning and to walk down the road to this school, it was heaven.

And it was just, coming here was just a life that I'll never forget, because it was the best years of my life.

- Our mothers and our fathers, and our family members wanted us to be the best because they knew that many people thought that we were not.

- That's where the real foundation for my education really began, is here at Campbell County Training School.

- Absolutely, the foundation.

It was really the foundation.

And the teachers throughout wanted you to do more.

- One of the main things we learned was to honor, if you will, respect the older people, how to treat our neighbors, mainly just how to be good citizens.

- Ms. Ames was the one that taught us our ABCs, taught us how to read, taught us how to draw the ABCs.

I think that's when I first got my first interest in drawing actually, was drawing the letters, trying to make them exactly like I saw 'em on the board.

- But, like anything else, you have to want it, and decide that this is what I want and this is what I want to build.

- I studied hard, and I just wanted to excel in life.

One of the main reasons for this, there was five boys and one girl in my family.

All of 'em quit school except two, me and my younger brother, they quit school.

My mother said, "I'm not gonna let you two quit school.

Two of my children are going to graduate from high school."

She believed that education was like a motor in a car.

You ain't going nowhere without it.

(uplifting music) - May Day was a day of celebration, usually somewhere around May 1st, and there were games and there was dancing, and there was this May pole.

The May pole had ribbons attached, of different colors.

- And then you went in and under, no, over and under, the next person next to you.

- And you kept walking around it until you really hit that May Pole looking like a piece of artwork.

- And everybody, parents came, and we had a great time.

- So most of the pictures that I see of Cape Charles Elementary, just about all of 'em are in black and white, there are no children, there's no activity.

And so, being an artist, I decided that I was going to make something in color, as I remembered it.

So I painted the school, children playing marbles.

I painted children wrestling each other, girls playing patty cake.

I also put the May pole in it, as I remember it, because I just, when I see the black and white pictures, it just looks like something from the 1600s.

So I just tried to bring it to life.

- [Narrator] Rosenwald schools were community focused.

Most welcomed students for decades, before desegregation, integration, and the passage of time made them obsolete.

One by one, the school houses were shuttered, declared surplus, sold, or simply forgotten, but not by everyone.

Now, thanks to the efforts of alumni, preservationists, and historians, Rosenwald schools across the commonwealth are being revitalized and put back into community service.

- They built 367 in Virginia, 10 in Goochland County, and this is the only one that's in this original configuration and location.

And so, we are so proud of Second Union School and this living museum that we have created.

- [Narrator] Campbell County Training School in Rustburg is a four-building complex.

The campus will feature a child development center, space for community gatherings, a recreated historic classroom, and more.

- Have a space for a business incubator.

And then behind that is a vocational center, a vocational training, where we are offering to employers, come in and tool this place so that you can train people to do what you need them to do.

We've got space.

We've got 8.95 acres of land out here that we can use for an outdoor classroom.

So we've got to be very aware of the kinds of things that we can offer the future generation, not just right now.

- Ellis Acres Park is a conversion of the Buckingham Training School campus, nine and a quarter acres, to a community park.

It was abandoned for many years, and used as a trash collection point in a very demeaning manner.

Well, the vision to transform Buckingham Training School campus from a trash dump to a productive product kinda come from my sons.

I have two sons.

My wife and I have two sons.

One is an engineer, and one is a dentist.

But at this time, they were going to school in Chesterfield, and they were complaining about going to school in trailers.

So I brought them to Buckingham Training School to show them where I went to school.

To show, sure, it may be short in some areas, you may not have everything, but sometime you just make the best situation of what you have.

And then that ignited me to say, why should my school be a trash dump or a trash site?

And that's where I had the motivation and the vision to make a difference with it.

Not just to restore it, but also that it will have an impact on the generations now and the generations to come.

- Everything was in this community area.

And the school was not only used for education, the school was used for various plays, it was used for picnics.

I mean, it was used for everything.

And so for them, it was a place that brought them joy.

And I also think it shows the importance of the school, because once we realized we have the building, we're gonna rehab the building, what do we think it needs to be?

And of course, we wanted to ask alumni.

And they said, well, it just can't be a museum.

It has to be a place where people continue to learn.

It has to be a place of education.

It brought us so much joy and opportunity, we have to open it back for that.

So we are really excited, because the building will be a multi-generational community center.

Northampton County is one of the poorest counties in the Commonwealth.

And so, one of the ways that we want to give back is to be able to provide educational opportunities for multi-generations.

- [Narrator] The Commonwealth's Rosenwald schools are evidence of an important chapter in Virginia history, a chapter that's been largely ignored for too long.

- We weren't taught.

Nobody was taught.

Black people weren't taught, the White people weren't taught.

And after so many years, the information dies.

- My undergraduate and graduate studies are in urban planning.

And I have a liking for historic preservation.

And the fact that this was an African-American school really piqued my interest.

The fact that ever since I was little, I can remember the school being vacant, not even knowing it was a school.

I couldn't understand why it was just sitting there.

I just didn't understand why it wasn't being used, or why I'd never heard of the history, never.

- Everybody of every color has been affected by this struggle, and we need to remember it, learn from it, and have it taught.

- It's heart-wrenching to talk to alums who remember as children walking to school several miles and along roads that the Whites would then pass 'em in their school buses going to their brick schools and were spitting on them, and yelling curse words at 'em, and throwing things out the window at 'em.

It's heart-wrenching to hear that, and we need to remember as Whites that that was our parents and our grandparents doing that to the African Americans, and we need to remember that in our future too.

- It's a part of Virginia history, it's a part of Virginia history like other parts of Virginia history, and I think it's a part that need to be told just like the other parts.

So that's why it's important.

It's a complete history.

- It's important for citizens to be critical, to understand how we got to where we are, not as cheerleaders, but as grownups who look back and think about our achievements, how we made them, and our mistakes, how did we make them?

- A lot of people do not really know, if you will, the trials and tribulations that we as a culture had to overcome to get, if you will, where we are now, and I think they need to know that we are proud of where we have come from.

- Every American has been touched by somebody that has been in a Rosenwald school.

Every one of us has been touched by it.

Whether we're talking about an astronaut, or we're talking about the Surgeon General, or we're talking about whomever, everyone has been touched by somebody that's the outcome, the product of a Rosenwald school, in one way or another.

- If had not been for the instructions of my first through seventh grade here, plus my high school teachers that instilled in me to push forward, to get and do the best that I can do, I wouldn't be sitting here today, I would not have been able to accomplish what I have.

But I accomplished what I have because it's been based on what my forefathers accomplished.

- Equality means equality.

And so, we reach for it by looking back, checking our errors, and expanding on our accomplishments.

- And people don't realize that this is what happened.

They don't realize that it's because of these Rosenwald schools that the civil rights movement happens.

It plays a role in it.

So it behooves us all to know more about this important subject, that's for sure.

- I would like us all to reflect on what would happen if these 5,000 schools were never built, if Julius Rosenwald never accepted Booker T. Washington's invitation to come to Tuskegee, if my great grandparents didn't have a place for their children to go to school.

And so, when I think about all of my cousins and uncles who've gone on to do amazing things, from inventors, to lawyers, to officers in our military, to public officials, to doctors, to actors, to folks who've gone on to change the world, the idea that this was a dream of my great-grandfather, that he would never see.

That's what gets me emotional, the idea that someone would plant a tree that they know they would never eat the fruit from, and that he didn't know me, but he dreamt of me.

- But to know that somebody thought enough of us to want us to have a really beautiful building to be educated in, it's important that people know that, that we came from that school because somebody thought of us, or thought of these little black children needing an education in a schoolhouse that was just as valuable as someone else's.

Maybe not as large, but just as valuable.

(tranquil music) (tranquil music)