Construction of the Hinesville Shaw Rosenwald School, as it was originally known, began in 1930 and was completed in 1931, fulfilling the goal of the Rosenwald Fund to provide state-of-the-art schools to black children in the segregated Jim Crow South who otherwise would not have had access to quality education. The Trustees of the Hinesville Colored Schools (Alonzo Simpson, J. H. Gause, and Robert Duggan) helped secure the local funding required to match the gift of the Rosenwald Fund.
The Rosenwald School was originally a comprehensive facility housing grades 1-11. I’m unsure when it became an elementary school, but the addition of a wing to the original Rosenwald structure, and a later separate building, were likely constructed during the era of Equalization Schools (1950s). It has long been known as the Hineshaw School/Hineshaw Elementary School. Neighborhood resident and businesswoman Rebecca Hargrove Shipman sold property adjacent to the school for the nominal fee of $1 to ensure street access to the campus. Two of those streets bear her name today, Rebecca Street and Shipman Avenue. Trustee J. H. Gause was also honored with a street bearing his name.
The campus remained in use in one form or another until the early 2000s but has been abandoned for many years. Neglect and storm damage have endangered the building and immediate stabilization is needed. It has recently been announced that Hinesville Downtown Development Authority is planning to restore the Rosenwald School.
This historic African-American schoolhouse was built in Manchester in 1928 with funds from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. It was a five-classroom design and was the only Rosenwald school in the county until the construction of the Eleanor Roosevelt School in nearby Warm Springs in 1936. It’s an exceptionally nice example of a Rosenwald, featuring a brick veneer, ornamental quoins at the corners, a fanlight above the entrance (now obscured), a circular window on the front gable, and a cupola (since removed). On one of his many visits to the area, future President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted his admiration for the Manchester school. He said, “When I was at Warm Springs in 1927-28, I was out riding with two members of our local school board. As we passed a very attractive school a few miles from Warm Springs I remarked that it was a very beautiful building.” The chairman of the board said “That’s a Rosenwald Negro School.” The other member said, “It puts our Warm Springs white school to shame.”
The Manchester Rosenwald soon became a county training school and enrollment increased rapidly. To accommodate this growth, a wooden annex was constructed next door. An exact date for the annex is unknown, but it was built in the 1930s. After serving the community until desegregation of Meriwether County schools, the Meriwether County Training School was abandoned for some time. From the 1980s until the early 2000s, it served the local Head Start program and now sits empty once again. I spoke with a lady whose husband attended the school and she was hopeful that it will be preserved for future generations.
Professor Thomas Jefferson Elder (1869-1946) came to Sandersville around 1889, at the invitation of a local minister, for the purpose of improving educational opportunities for Sandersville’s Black children. According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination form, he was “the one man who had meant most to the educational, social and spiritual advancement of the colored people of the county for almost 60 years.”
Newspaper photos of Professor Thomas Jefferson Elder and Lillian Phinizy Elder, circa 1940s. Public Domain images accessed via Findagrave. No known restrictions.
A brochure from the City of Sandersville notes that Thomas Jefferson Elder was born and raised in Oconee County. His father was Blant Elder, a planter, and his mother was Sarah A. Love. He barely knew his mother as she lived in the home of her employer. A white man named John Meeks took care of Elder and his brother after their mother died. They attended the Knox Institute in Athens and graduated from Atlanta University. He taught for two years in Athens, where he met his wife, Lillian Phinizy Elder (1868-1943), a graduate of Spelman Seminary and fellow teacher. He furthered his education at Morgan Park Academy and Cook County Normal in Chicago, and Hampton Institute in Virginia.
In 1889, Elder established “Sandersville’s first Negro school” in the Springfield Baptist Church, with 25 students. Two years later, he purchased a nearby lot and built a two-room school, which became the Sandersville High and Industrial School. It was the first school in this part of the state to include manual training in its curriculum and in 1917 a domestic science building was constructed with the help of the Rosenwald Fund. In 1928, due largely to the fundraising efforts of Professor Elder, the present structure was built by the Rosenwald Fund and renamed the Thomas J. Elder High and Industrial School in his honor. It is in the H-Form popular among Rosenwald schools and was considered one of the finest and largest Black schools in Middle Georgia at the time. As to his administrative skill, his obituary noted: During his superintendency of the school, he maintained rigid discipline. A student breaking a window replaced it at his own expense, often working after hours to earn the money. Desks in the school, some of them over 40 years old, were unmarred by carving and whittling. Elder explained that offenders were made either to sand down and varnish the desk top or to buy a new one.
Professor Elder and his wife are buried in front of the school. An article in the 13 June 1946 edition of the Sandersville Progress recounts the following: Nearly 20 years ago, standing in the city square, the late George Warthen and the late C. B. Chapman made an agreement. “When Elder died,” said Mr. Warthen, “if one or the other of us is living he will see that Elder has white pall bearers. Agreed?” “Agreed,” said Mr. Chapman. G.S. Chapman overheard the conversation; it was he who carried out the agreement for his father.
The school became an elementary school in 1960, when a new Black high school was built, and continued in that capacity until closing in 1980. It now serves as the T. J. Elder Community Center.
This school, which served Vienna’s African-American community before desegregation, was built in part with funds provided by the Rosenwald Fund and utilized it “Six Teacher Community School Plan”. It was built by Governor George Busbee’s father, who also built the nearby Lilly School. N. B. Lavender was the first principal.
The National Register of Historic Places listing for the school is a bit confusing, as it identifies this as the County Training School, noting the vocational focus of many schools for African-Americans at the time. However, the original cornerstone for the school identifies it as the Vienna Industrial & High School. An equalization school was built adjacent to the property in 1959, and the campus included all of the earlier Rosenwald structures.
A shop building for vocational activities was built near the schoolhouse, also in 1926. A second shop building (not pictured) was built in 1959 to the right of the schoolhouse.
A food processing/canning plant was attached to the old shop building at a later date..
Members of the Class of 1945 are remembered on the steps of the old shop building, including: R. Lilly; L. Chaney; R. Chaney; A. Graham; F. Smith; L. Smith; E. Bell; B. Godwin; H. Reece; G. Fudge; O. Barnes; G. Eunice; C. Wallace; and M. Edwards.
The Acworth Rosenwald School was originally located on School Street but when Cobb County planned to demolish it in the late 1940s, the community came together and moved it to its present location on Cherokee Street and rebuilt it board by board. It served as a gathering place for Acworth’s Black community, but went through periods of disuse over the years. Due to the efforts of Cobb Landmarks, it has been preserved and is now owned by the city of Acworth. It continues to serve the community.
While photographing in Camden County with Cynthia Jennings yesterday, I met Mr. Marshall Glover. Mr. Glover is leading the work of restoring the historic Kinlaw Rosenwald School, which was built in 1921. The formal education of African-American children in Kinlaw began in a one-room schoolhouse built on the site in 1896.
The African-American community of Kinlaw was very progressive and embraced better education for its children. Upon learning of the existence of the Rosenwald grants from Matilda Harris, Camden County’s supervisor of black schools, the people of Kinlaw began exploring the possibility of replacing their schoolhouse with a better facility. They raised $909 and with matching contributions and grants began construction on this structure in 1920, with the first classes beginning in 1921. The school offered instruction for children from first to seventh grade and was one of three Rosenwald facilities in the county. Kinlaw is the only one that survives today.
Mr. Glover told me that his father and grandfather both attended the school and that he was glad to be doing the restoration as a way of honoring them. He noted that he has been working for over a year and spent much of that time caulking the tongue-and-groove paneling. He pointed out that the excellent material and construction of the school has been evident during the restoration, with much of the work being cosmetic. He stated that there were some parts of the floor that were compromised due to leaks in the old roof, but they are getting to that work now. With a team of volunteers, he has done an excellent job.
Please consider a contribution to continue this important work. Secure donations can be made here.
The Blackshear Rosenwald School was built between 1925-1926 to provide a good education for African-American children.
When the school moved into a more modern facility [red building visible at left], the building became the Marian Anderson Library and served the community for many years. It is presently in stable condition, but restoration as a community center or museum would be the best way to insure its future.
The class of 1948 placed two brick gateposts in front of the school. This one contains a marble plaque identifying the graduates: J. B. Twyne; H. J. Lofton; C. S. Britton; T. F. Gibson; A. Fulmore; L. M. Harris; D. A. Deal; and L. Sellers. V. R. McClain was the advisor and S. D. Tarver was the principal.
Queensland Negro Industrial Training School, 1918, Educational Survey of Ben Hill County, Georgia. Public domain.
The first known school in Queensland was built at a time when many churches and benevolent societies demanded and funded improvements for African-American students in the South. The first school [pictured above] was originally known as the Queensland Negro Industrial Training School and was later Queensland Elementary and Queensland High. The original structure was replaced by a modern facility in the late 1940s or early 1950s and all structures were razed by the early 2000s.
The historical marker, placed by Ben Hill County, is titled: Queensland Negro Industrial Training School to Queensland Elementary and High School. It reads: In July 1913, applicants furnished 10 acres of land and $800.00 cash to build the Queensland Negro Industrial Training School on this site. The Ben Hill County Board of Education matched the funds, work began, and the school and grounds were dedicated on October 2, 1913. The Rosenwald Fund continued to support the school by financing building projects as needed for growth.
The first principal, J. Clifton Smith, a graduate of Brown College and Tuskegee Institute, promised the patrons that with their cooperation he would teach their children and themselves better use of the land and better modes of living. First term commencement exercises were held May 2-May 5, 1914. School enrollment for the first term totaled nearly 300 students representing seven counties; with 107 boys in the corn club and 76 girls in the canning club. The school was one of the first three in Georgia designated as Training Schools for excellent vocational training in labor professions. The school expanded academic offerings and prepared graduates to pursue professional careers as lawyers, doctors and educators as well as farmers and laborers.
In 1918, the school was supported by the county board of education, the Slater Fund and a Negro Baptist Association, mainly for the purpose of training teachers for the Negro schools. The original school included a two-story building with five large classrooms, a dormitory and teachers’ home. The faculty consisted of the principal and four assistants with an average enrollment of over 200 students. At that time, including Queensland, there were fourteen Negro schools in Ben Hill County. The rest were one- teacher schools located in church buildings with very little equipment.
The world is a better place because of the dedication of patrons, educators, administrators and the thousands of students who were educated on these grounds located “Deep into the heart of Southeast Georgia.” The Christian Fellowship Tabernacle Church, which now owns and occupies this site, continues the legacy of preparing people to make a positive difference in this world.
The Morven Rosenwald Alumni Association, with the cooperation of the Georgia Historical Society and the Brooks County Board of Commissioners restored this important resource in 2013. The marker placed at the site reads: Barney Colored Elementary School was part of the Rosenwald school building program that matched funds from philanthropist Julius Rosenwald with community donations to build rural Southern schools during the era of segregation. An example of a “community school plan,” it included large banks of windows, an industrial room, and sliding partition doors to accommodate larger school and community gatherings. This combined a Progressive-era design emphasis on lighting and ventilation with educator Booker T. Washington’s focus on community development and industrial training for rural African Americans. The school operated from 1933 to 1959, serving first through sixth grade students. One of six Rosenwald projects in Brooks County, Barney served as a feeder school to the Morven Rosenwald School. In 2006, the Morven Rosenwald Alumni Association, Inc. acquired the building and preserved it for community use.
Located between Metter and Twin City is a Rosenwald school known as the Canoe-Hagan School. Rosenwald Schools were built through the efforts of Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington and thousands of volunteers all over the South. Their purpose was to provide industrial education to rural blacks at a time when Southern states were barely providing them school buildings, let alone a proper education.
Thanks to James Palmer for pointing out the Rosenwald connection, and for the identification.
UPDATE: Sadly, this landmark burned to the ground on 16 June 2017.
