Bristow in Creek County, Oklahoma — The American South (West South Central)
The Julius Rosenwald Fund
⎯⎯⎯
Creek County Rosenwald Schools
Photographed by Jerry Klinger
1. The Julius Rosenwald Fund side of the marker
Julius Rosenwald Fund. In 1912, Tuskegee Institute President Dr. Booker T. Washington invited Jewish-American philanthropist Julius Rosenwald to serve on the Tuskegee board of directors to help African American education, where rural, segregated southern schools suffered from inadequate facilities and books. Rosenwalds 1917 school building fund encouraged and helped organize local collaboration between Blacks and Whites. Providing grant funding, the Fund required communities to raise matching funds. Local Black communities raised money, donated land and or labor for the efforts. Between 1917 and 1932, Rosenwald funded 5,357 community schools, teachers homes, and industrial shops in the 15 states of the former South. Many of the schools were 1-4 room Tuskegee Institute designs. They were taught by Black teachers under the local Board of Education. By the 1930s, 1/3 of all Black children attended a Rosenwald School.
Creek County Rosenwald Schools. Creek County had approximately 15 Rosenwald schools, including but not limited to Oakland School, Burgess School, Sunset School, Morning Star School, Crowson School, Browns
this page online
Erected 2023 by Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Lincoln Alumni Association, City of Bristow.
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: African Americans • Civil Rights • Education. In addition, it is included in the Rosenwald Schools series list. A significant historical year for this entry is 1912.
Location. 35° 50.187′ N, 96° 23.219′ W. Marker is
Photographed by Jerry Klinger
2. Creek County Rosenwald Schools side of the marker
Regionally, this marker is in the Muscogee Nation and in Greater Tulsa. It is also in the American South, specifically on the prairies, and on the Southern Plains. Globally, it is in North America, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once the territory of the Mississippian Culture and also the Louisiana Purchase.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 2 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies: Creek Masonic Lodge (approx. 0.2 miles away); Bristow Memories (approx. Ό mile away); FRISCO Train Depot (approx. Ό mile away); Bristow Pioneers Plaza (approx. 0.3 miles away); Bristow Concrete Walk (approx. 0.4 miles away); Roland Hotel (approx. 0.4 miles away); The Klingensmith Park Amphitheater (approx. 0.9
Photographed by Jerry Klinger, September 2, 2023
3. The Julius Rosenwald Fund Marker
Also see . . .
1. Julius Rosenwald Fund in Oklahoma - Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office. (Submitted on September 6, 2023, by Jerry Klinger of Boynton Beach, Florida.)
2. Still standing: The legacy and history of an Oklahoma Rosenwald school.
Oklahoma history and the history of Black Americans has been inextricably linked by a number of events throughout time, from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre to the start of the sit-in movement by civil rights icon Clara Luper. In fact, at one point the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. even visited Oklahoma City, applying for a preaching job at Calvary Baptist Church in Deep Deuce.(Submitted on September 6, 2023, by Jerry Klinger of Boynton Beach, Florida.)
And in a small rural town about an hour southeast of Oklahoma City, one of the 13 surviving historically Black towns, stands another prominent piece of Oklahoman and American history.
The building Rosenwald Hall built the same year as the race massacre that took place 100 miles northeast, was one of numerous investments in Black communities across America, in partnershipbetween Booker T. Washington, a Black educator and leader of the Tuskegee Institute, and Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish American businessman and philanthropist.Photographed by Jerry Klinger4. Bristow NewsThe Bristow Board of Education has accepted plans and advertised for bids on a new grade school building for colored children, which will be known as Lincoln school. It will be of brick, one story, and five rooms. The County has allowed $7500 for the building, and the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, $1200. The school will have a site of two acres, providing ample playgrounds and landscaping. The building is to be completed by the last of May.
3. Rosenwald Schools helped educate Black students in segregated South. Could a national park follow?.
ST. GEORGE, S.C. (AP) As Ralph James settled into the restored, highbacked desk at the segregated school he attended in rural South Carolina, he remembered the old school bell, the cascading light through tall windows, the Christmas pageant and the basketball court just outside.(Submitted on September 6, 2023, by Jerry Klinger of Boynton Beach, Florida.)
It was in schools like this one, and nearly 5,000 others built in the American South a century ago, that Black students largely ignored by whites in power gained an educational foundation through the generosity of a Jewish businessman who could soon be memorialized with a national park.
Credits. This page was last revised on September 12, 2023. It was originally submitted on September 6, 2023. This page has been viewed 980 times since then and 59 times this year. Last updated on September 9, 2023. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4. submitted on September 6, 2023, by Jerry Klinger of Boynton Beach, Florida. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
