Rosenwald.Archive.Fisk

08/19/2025

One week ago we celebrated the 163rd birthday of Julius Rosenwald. Born on August 12, 1862, in Springfield, Illinois, Julius Rosenwald grew up in a Jewish immigrant family shaped by values of justice, education, and community. He learned the clothing trade in his father’s shop and left high school early to apprentice in New York, eventually becoming the visionary businessman behind Sears. But Rosenwald’s legacy reaches far beyond commerce. Inspired by Booker T. Washington and moved by the parallels between antisemitism and racial injustice, Rosenwald quietly helped build over 5,000 schools with Black communities across the segregated South, especially in rural communities. His life reminds us that community investment that is rooted in empathy, humility, and action can ripple across generations. His legacy remains a model of philanthropy that socialists, economists and communities can learn from today. On his birthday, we take the opportunity to reflect on the long-lasting impacts a man who didn’t just rise—he uplifted.

08/06/2025

And just like that, our summer internships have come to a close! Thank you to students Daniel Chukwudera, Maureen Nwoso, Ogechi Uche, and Aadesh Dhodari for your amazing work with metadata and scanning for the Rosenwald Fund Archive. We could not have progressed without you!

Each day we get closer to launching our online portal, and these students are ensuring our database will have detailed and accurate information on each and every archive. We are so excited to bring this resource to the global community.

08/04/2025

Closer look into an image of a rural Rosenwald school in the Julius Rosenwald Fund Archive at Fisk University

07/28/2025

This image is a powerful and historically rich snapshot from within a Rosenwald School in rural Alabama. Let’s unpack what we see! Mounted in the wall are framed portraits of George Washington, and Booker T. Washington.

Washington, as the first president of the US, is a symbol of American Jeffersonian democracy, patriotism, humble leadership, and American foundational nostalgia.

Booker T. Washington, a leading educator and founder of Tuskegee Institute, was a powerful figure for Black self-determination and uplift through education and vocational training. His philosophy of practical education and economic self-reliance deeply shaped the creation of the Rosenwald schools through his partnership with Julius Rosenwald.

His presence on the wall is equal to that of George Washington’s. Placing them side by side suggests Booker T. as an American founding father against the backdrop of the American flag. One man signifies the founding ideas of a nation, the other insists on those ideals applying to all. Three Black women conduct the classroom, ushering the heart of the Rosenwald legacy, and taking the role of educators who pave paths to equity, dignity and empowerment with their students.

Another interesting aspect of this image is the hairstyles of the students. The boys have bald or closely shaved heads, and the girls have braids.

These styles, both then and now, were culturally encouraged in classrooms and workplaces to align with white American manifestations of neatness and discipline.

An ocean away from their African origins, white institutions adopted hair style regulations as a tool for texturism and anti-Black sentiment, yet still, to Black Americans they indicated much more.

These styles trace back to African indigenous styles and practices with longstanding histories of dignity, care and beauty.

Braids only grew more personal to Black Americans across the diaspora through the middle passage with the cultivation of braids as roadmaps to freedom, beds for sowing seeds, designs for beauty, practical practices on the plantation and after, and ways of showing care for your loved ones.

07/21/2025

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2025/07/11/mary-mcleod-bethune-fisk-university-smithsonian/84536645007/

A rediscovered trove of Mary McLeod Bethune's papers at Fisk University links Nashville to America’s continuing fight for educational equity.

07/21/2025

A remarkable rediscovery at Fisk University has illuminated a powerful chapter in Black educational history. LINK IN BIO TO READ THIS FULL ARTICLE (Published by The Tennessean).

Among the archives of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, Library Director DeLisa Minor Harris and historian Dr. Crystal A. deGregory uncovered a 1929 letter from Mary McLeod Bethune to Fisk sociologist Charles S. Johnson. In it, Bethune invited Johnson—later Fisk’s first Black president—to co-author her biography, envisioning it as “a roadmap for our children’s tomorrow.”

This collaboration, though never completed, reveals the deep intellectual kinship between two giants of Black advancement. Their shared vision underscored the urgent need for federal investment in Black education, a cause both championed through their work and advocacy.

Fisk University, long a steward of African American heritage, is now digitizing this collection to ensure Bethune’s voice and vision reach future generations. This effort reflects Fisk’s enduring commitment to preserving and sharing the legacies of Black educators across the South.

As we celebrate Bethune’s recent 150th birthday, this discovery is more than archival—it’s a call to remember, to learn, and to continue the work of justice through education.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2025/07/11/mary-mcleod-bethune-fisk-university-smithsonian/84536645007/

07/14/2025

This moment meant a great deal to our Director of the Franklin Library and former archivist, Dr. DeLisa Harris. “Some stories wait quietly in the archives — until it’s time to be heard.” (Harris)

She shares about an amazing rediscovery in our Rosenwald Archive:

FISK ARCHIVES SPEAK — A LIBRARIAN’S PERSPECTIVE ON A LANDMARK FIND
Last April, just weeks after Women’s History Month, I invited Dr. Crystal A. deGregory '03 of Bethune-Cookman's Mary McLeod Bethune Institute for the Study of Women and Girls into Fisk University’s John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library — as its Director, former archivist, and lifelong Fiskite — to unseal an archival box processed in 1982 by Ann Allen Shockley — Fisk’s longtime librarian, archivist and writer . Inside, Mary McLeod Bethune’s own letters and diary pages emerged, revealing her partnership with Charles S. Johnson and reshaping twentieth-century Black progress.

As a Black woman scholar, HBCU alumna, and public historian, some discoveries aren’t hidden; they’re simply waiting for us to pay closer attention.

This rediscovery underscores the vital role our library plays in preserving Black women’s voices. I’m honored to spearhead our Adam Matthew Digital partnership — serving as Project Director — to digitize and share these earliest Bethune–Johnson papers with scholars and students worldwide.

Read our op-ed in The Tennessean, co-authored with Dr. deGregory, to see how these pages reframed Bethune’s influence — and why Nashville must steward these collections with urgency and care. Many thanks to Andrea Williams for the opportunity to share this story with the city that shaped me.
https://lnkd.in/g-5GsGYV

07/07/2025

Given the opportunity, what would you do with the Rosenwald Fellowship? Where would you go? What would you study?