Cape Charles Rosenwald School restoration enters new phase

Woodson Center Launches Fundraising Campaign to Bring Historic School Back to Life

The Woodson Center and the Cape Charles Rosenwald School Restoration Initiative are launching a major campaign to raise $2.5 million to restore a 1920s-era Rosenwald school in Cape Charles, VA. The brick, four-classroom schoolhouse educated African American children during legalized segregation and was the heart of the Black community in Cape Charles for nearly four decades. It is one of nearly 5,000 Rosenwald schools built in the 1920s and ‘30s by education reformer Booker T. Washington in partnership with Sears Roebuck magnate Julius Rosenwald, and it is one of only a few hundred still standing today.

Many Rosenwald Schools closed after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which found racial segregation to be unconstitutional. The Cape Charles school closed in 1966, but its walls still stand as a legacy to the self-determination and resiliency of the Black community. The school is designated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as an endangered historic site.

Funds raised will be used to refurbish the Cape Charles Rosenwald School, preserve its legacy, and transform it into a center for education, entrepreneurship, arts, and culture.

Saturday, October 23, 2021