Julius Rosenwald, who was born in 1862 while Abraham Lincoln was president, in a house just one block from the liberator’s own home in Springfield, Illinois. 

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During the summer of 1910, Rosenwald read the autobiography of the great black educator Booker T. Washington and was strongly affected. Within a year, Rosenwald and Washington were building a relationship that included visits to each other’s homes. Rosenwald’s first speech introducing the educator to Chicago’s business leaders described Washington as “helping his own race to attain the high art of self-help and self-dependence” while simultaneously “helping the white race to learn that opportunity and obligation go hand in hand, and that there is no enduring superiority save that which comes as the result of serving.”

Rosenwald and Washington launched an effort to build new schools in parts of the rural South where little or no education was being offered to rural blacks. Washington documented progress on the schools with photos and careful accounting, including descriptions of the community enthusiasm for the erection of the new schools created among locals of all races. Pride in the fresh facilities often overflowed into newly painted houses, improved roads, and expanded cooperation among residents. Rosenwald and Washington built schools all across the South over more than 20 years. There were also correlated efforts to train teachers to serve in the new schools, and funds to provide libraries and workshops for students. Rosenwald insisted right from the beginning that his donation would only be made if it was matched by local residents (most of whom were poor blacks who skeptics said could never come up with adequate funds).  And despite their limited resources, thousands of rural black communities succeeded in pulling together the funds to match Rosenwald’s gift.

Poignant stories have been recorded of black laborers emptying bags of old coins, representing years of savings, to underwrite these schools. Sharecroppers set aside a “Rosenwald Patch” when they planted their cotton. Innumerable pie sales and fried chicken suppers were organized to raise matching funds. During construction, many black families donated materials or invested sweat equity via their labor. Local whites also contributed, encouraged by the uplift the new schools offered their towns. Rosenwald funds were used to improve the Lincoln School facility and erect two additional buildings on the school site.

Julius Rosenwald left a powerful imprint on numerous causes. He was also a generous backer of black colleges. He funded the construction of 22 YMCA/YWCA community centers and urban dormitories for blacks during the segregated era. And he funded a third of the litigation costs of the Brown v. Board of Education case that ended school segregation. In addition to changing the country, Rosenwald changed philanthropy.