Okahumpka Rosenwald School

Okahumpka Rosenwald School. . Julius Rosenwald was the chairman of Sears Roebuck and Co. in 1908. As a Jewish American, he believed the most serious problem of the United Stats was the plight of Black Americans. Rosenwald was a close friend of Booker T. Washington. Washington had been a slave but rose to become the nationally respected President of Tuskegee Institute (University) an author, orator, and advisor to American Presidents. 1912 Rosenwald because a Trustee of Tuskegee., Under Washington's Guidance, Rosenwald funded a successful pilot program making education accessible to Black Children in Alabama by building school houses., In 1915, Washington died. Rosenwald continuing Dr. Washington's vision, established the Rosenwald Fund in 1917, "for the well-being of Mankind". When the Rosenwald Fund was terminated in 1948, it had been the catalyst for building over 5,300 schools in 15 States of the South. The Fund provided educational opportunity to 1/3 of all Black American children., The Rosenwald Fund was based up a system of matching grants requiring White School Boards and Black-American communities to cooperate together for school construction. Black-American communities contributed $4.8 million to the building of 127 schools in Florida. In Lake County, ten schools, three shops and one teacher's home were built., The Okahumpka Rosenwald School was approved by the Lake County Board of Public Instruction in 1929. One-half acre of this school property was donated on May 17, 1930, by Virgil and Josephine Hawkins, the parents of Florida Civil Rights leader, Attorney Virgil and Josephine Hawkins, whose 1949-1958 court battles desegregated the University of Florida. Hawkins attended school on this site through the 190th grade in an old ramshackle school that was torn down to accommodate the building of this modern Okahumpka Rosenwald school.