Virtual Tour of Julius Rosenwald High School, Reedville

This is a virtual tour of Julius Rosenwald High School near Reedville on Virginia's Northern Neck. When it opened in 1917, it was known as Northumberland County Training School. As with all Rosenwald Schools, funding to support the construction was provided by local African Americans and the Rosenwald Fund, a foundation established by Julius Rosenwald, an Illinois businessman and philanthropist. Between 1912 and 1932, the program helped produce 5,357 new educational facilities for African Americans across fifteen southern states, providing almost 700,000 African American children in rural, isolated communities with state-of-the-art facilities at a time when little to no public money was put toward Black education. In Virginia, the initiative helped fund 382 schools and support buildings in seventy-nine counties. In 1932, the school was renamed the Julius Rosenwald High School. It closed in 1958. In 2010, the Julius Rosenwald School Foundation of Northumberland County, Inc. was formed to preserve the legacy of the school.