The Long Ridge Community in Mars Hill, North Carolina, is a historic Black community in Madison County. In 1928, the Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School was built. The two-room schoolhouse was built at the cost of $2,093.
If you want to know more about the school, its trustees built an incredible website documenting its history and published a book. I highly recommend visiting to see the great work they’ve done.
After the Civil War, freedmen formed communities all around the South. Near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Cemetery community received its name because of its location next to Stones River National Cemetery. Retired members of the United States Colored Troops chose to live in the area alongside newly freed men and women after the federal government decided to build one of the national cemeteries in this area, which would provide jobs for those who helped create and maintain the cemetery.
Founded in 1874, the Cemetery School educated local schoolchildren until 1962. The first school was used until 1945 when the new building seen above was built. The Cemetery School was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
The Seneca Institute was a school built in 1899 in Seneca, South Carolina, to educate Black schoolchildren. It was founded by the Seneca River Baptist Association. In 1926, it added two years of college, and it became the Seneca Junior College.
Faith Cabin Libraries began in rural South Carolina, where, due to segregation, African Americans did not have access to public libraries. Willie Lee Buffington and Euriah Simpkins created the idea of these libraries. A letter-writing campaign focused on preachers provided funding.
In 1937, the Faith Cabin Library at the Seneca Junior College was built and filled with books provided by Oberlin College.
It was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
For several years, the Georgia Department of Education provided reports on the state of Georgia’s schools. These reports are a goldmine for photos of old schools. Although most are not extant, they provide context for what schools were like in the early 1900s.
The Rosenwald School Fund formally began in 1917. However, Julius Rosenwald started donating money to help build schools in the South for Black schoolchildren as early as 1912. From 1912 to 1932, Rosenwald Funds helped fund the building of almost 5,000 schools. In the state of Georgia, 242 schools were built in 103 counties (Jones, 2021).
The 1921 school report that includes the above photo shares (p. 68), “The Jasper County Training School, at Monticello, has been completed. This is a building of the most modern type, with six large class-rooms, two smaller rooms, auditorium, ship-room, and ample cloak room space. The aid of the General Education Board has made it possible to completely equip on room for Home Economics teaching.” The school was built at the cost of $8,000. Black community members provided $4,200. The general education fund provided $2,200, and the Rosenwald Fund provided the rest.
The school is no longer standing.
For additional reading, I recommend this blog post titled, “From Equalization Schools to Desegregation in Monticello, Georgia: A Historical Sketch” and a newspaper article in The Monticello News titled, “A Forgotten Black History of Monticello-JCTS.”
The Durham’s Chapel School was one of seven Rosenwald schools built in Sumner County, Tennessee. It was tied to the Durham’s Chapel Baptist Church. The school was constructed at $4,250; the Rosenwald Fund provided $700, and the remaining amount was divided between the local Black community and the Tennessee public school funds.
The school is a traditional two-teacher classroom with an additional industrial arts room. Built in 1923, upgrades were made to the school after Brown v. Board of Education with a stove, refrigerator, and kitchen sink.
It was places on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. The school was restored in 2012 at the cost of $40,000.
This small structure is located on the Glover Chapel Baptist Church campus. Initially, I could not identify the structure, but thankfully, the church is still active, and they confirmed it is a one-room schoolhouse.
