Black History Month Cape Fear Stories: Rosenwald schools

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Dotting the landscape across North Carolina, and many other states, are relics of a bygone era that symbolize a philanthropist’s efforts to improve the education of poor African-Americans.

In the early 1900s Julius Rosenwald, the President of Sears Roebuck, decided to do something about the sad state of education for black children.

He started a fund that provided matching grants and architectural plans that led to the creation of 5,300 schools across the south.

Some of those Rosenwald schools still stand, including in Pender County, but these pieces of history are threatened.

Last year a National Park Service grant hoped to preserve these schools and other properties of historic significance to North Carolina’s African-American community, nominating them to the National Register of Historic Places.

One of the Pender County sites was given new life in 2011 when a Rosenwald school in Currie was restored to serve as the Canetuck Community Center, continuing the legacy of the schoolhouses serving their community.