The photo is timeless.
It shows 16 Black educators who served in Nacogdoches, including the legendary E.J. Campbell, along with Emeline Carpenter (whose name is on a campus here), Jerusha Brooks and Mollie Quinn, whose names appear with W.E. Jones on NISD’s Brooks-Quinn-Jones Elementary.
That same photo also shows, in the background, a building that’s closely linked to the acclaimed Julius Rosenwald, a Chicago businessman who led Sears, Roebuck and Co. to dominate the retail industry in the first half of the 20th century.
The building displayed in the background was partially paid for by the Rosenwald Fund, a foundation that built thousands of schools for Black students across the American South.
In 1912, Rosenwald turned a meeting with celebrated Black educator Booker T. Washington into a philanthropic undertaking that helped build thousands of school structures for Black students, including the one shown here along with nine others across Nacogdoches County.
That building no longer exists. It was demolished years ago, sometime after 1971, when public schools in Nacogdoches were fully integrated.
But the Rosenwald Fund’s impact on public education remains crucial today, said Archie Rison, a 1966 graduate of E.J. Campbell High, the school Black students attended in Nacogdoches before full integration took place.
The investment from the Rosenwald Fund grew from a need in Nacogdoches that was acknowledged by the NISD Board of Trustees. On July 8, 1930, the board appointed a committee to investigate the necessity for an industrial building for Black students, which became the structure partially paid for by Rosenwald.
Rison’s copy of the colorized photograph of the Black Nacogdoches educators is shown above. It was only later he realized the structure in the background of the photo was the old Rosenwald building.
The Rosenwald Fund constructed thousands of school buildings for Black students between 1917 and the mid 1930s, mostly in the American South, including here in East Texas (10 were located in Nacogdoches County alone).
Rosenwald schools educated tens of thousands of Black students, and by the time of his death in 1932, Rosenwald contributed more than $50 million to the Fund, which would continue providing fellowships until it closed down in 1948.
Rosenwald was the leader and part-owner of retailing giant Sears, Roebuck and Co., sort of the Amazon website of its day, only in a paper catalog form. His Julius Rosenwald Fund poured millions of dollars in matching support into projects across the nation to promote vocational and technical education for Black students. The building partially funded by Rosenwald in Nacogdoches was an industrial education facility that was separate from the school house that’s still standing today.
In the coming months, Rison said, a marker will go up at the location of the building that was partially paid for by Rosenwald, recognizing the site as one of the locations of the schools (along Shawnee St. near the existing former E.J. Campbell High School that’s still used as an annex by Nacogdoches ISD).
What also remains at the location is the original school building for Black students. The first part of that structure dates back to 1904, with sections added in 1917, 1927 and then again in 1936, part of an expansion of Black education opportunities led by E.J. Campbell. After Campbell died unexpectedly in 1937, the school was named in his honor.
Later, around 1940, an auditorium was constructed. The auditorium burned during the 1980s, but parts of the foundation are still visible today.
The Rosenwald-funded school building under construction in Nacogdoches.