RAAC lecture program focuses on promoters of African-American education
RAAC Library Series October 10 - “Two Community Organizers - Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald and their Extraordinary Legacy.”
On Friday October 10 (8 pm), as part of RAAC’s Friday at the Library series, writer and critic Stephanie Deutsch will share the research and writing she has done about the fascinating collaboration between two self-made men from disparate backgrounds who changed the face of education for African Americans in rural communities across the country.
Julius Rosenwald, born the son of Jewish German immigrants in Illinois, eventually became part-owner and president of Sears and Roebuck and a major philanthropist. Booker T. Washington, born into slavery on a tobacco farm in southern Virginia, fought for his own education and, as head of the Tuskegee Institute, became the nation’s foremost black educator. Together they gave birth to the Rosenwald school project which helped construct 4977 schools to educate African American students throughout the South, of which the Scrabble School here in Rappahannock was one.
Initially attracted to the story of Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington for family reasons (she is married to a Rosenwald great-grandson), Deutsch has found in it a prism for her own consideration of both American history and of philanthropy. “As the daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, I spent my high school years in a French lycée; I was ignorant of the conditions surrounding the creation of the Rosenwald schools and was just vaguely familiar with the towering and controversial reputation of Booker T. Washington. As my interest in the subject quickened, I spoke with family members, read and studied and made repeated visits to do research in Chicago and Tuskegee. In the fall of 2005 I worked on the book as a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.”
A regular reviewer of both fiction and non-fiction for the Washington Times, Deutsch has written as well for The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, The Millions blog and various neighborhood newspapers. She edited and wrote the Introduction to Capitol Hill: Beyond the Monuments, a book of photographs published in 1996 by the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop.
Educated at Brown University (BA Russian Studies) and Harvard (MA Soviet Union Area Studies), Deutsch is chairman of the grants committee of the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, which gives away over $200,000 a year in small grants. This has given her ample opportunity to appreciate Julius Rosenwald’s observation that it is often harder to give money away wisely than to make it. Deutsch lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, a retired television director (he directed the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer for many years) and is the mother of three grown children – two of whom, she is proud to note, majored in U.S. history.
The story Stephanie Deutsch has to tell is of particular interest in Rappahannock because of current efforts to restore and preserve the Scrabble School as both a historical site and as a Senior Center for the county. Thanks to support from the county and many donors, the renovation project is due to start construction next month. Please join RAAC on October 10 (8 pm) at the Rappahannock County Library to learn more about the “back story” behind Scrabble and the other Rosenwald schools.
-- Admin
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