CULPEPER, Va. (AP) - Nan Butler Roberts retains fond memories of her time attending the Scrabble School in Rappahannock, one of more than 360 Rosenwald schools specially built in Virginia to educate African-American children during racial segregation.
“It was an absolutely great experience. I wouldn’t change it for the world,” said the president of the Scrabble School Preservation Foundation.
The Scrabble School still stands, restored and serving as the county’s senior center, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. However, many of the state’s Rosenwald schools disappeared and faded with age or were demolished, landing them on the 2013 list of “Virginia’s Most Endangered Places.”
But through a recently-awarded $50,000 “Underrepresented Community” National Park Service grant, preservationists are preparing to undertake a survey of Piedmont area Rosenwald schools - including in Albemarle, Culpeper, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties - to document location and condition with an eye toward restoring as many of the buildings as possible to active community use.
It’s also a goal to see more Rosenwald schools on the National Register.
Preservation Virginia and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources publicly announced the initiative April 6 at Hampton University as part of the fourth annual gathering of the Rosenwald School statewide network.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe spoke at the event following a screening of “Rosenwald,” a 2015 documentary by Aviva Kempner about how Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, part owner of Sears & Roebuck, partnered with Booker T. Washington to build 5,400 schools across America during Jim Crow.
Culpeper school mystery
Built 1930-31, Culpeper’s single Rosenwald School was known as the Thompson School, though its exact location and current condition is a bit of a mystery.
A 1941 insurance report conducted for the Culpeper County School Board perhaps provides a clue with its listing of the, “ELDORADO (THOMPSON) SCHOOL (Colored),” built 1929. An accompanying photo appears to resemble the photo for the Thompson School listing included as part of Nashville-based Fisk University’s Rosenwald school database from the Julius Rosenwald Archive.
“Addresses and exact locations are not included in any documentation related to Rosenwald schools,” said DeLisa Minor Harris, a special collections reference librarian at Fisk University. “The Julius Rosenwald fund documents only list county names and states.”
A still-standing school building in the Eldorado section of Culpeper County, along Route 729, that was a country store for years and now is a private residence, looks like both photos of the Thompson School.
“That was the school style for that period,” said Culpeper historian Zann Nelson, known for her extensive research on African-American history. “We have more than one school in Culpeper that looks like that. This school was built around 1930 and my guess is there was a black school serving this community prior to building this one.”
She believes the Thompson School was actually located in the Norman section of Culpeper County and was torn down years ago.
There’s no record of the Thompson School at the Culpeper County Library and those who may have attended it have passed on.
Survey needed
Such uncertainty is exactly the reason why the grant-funded survey of Piedmont area Rosenwald schools is needed, said Jim Hare, director of the Division of Survey & Register with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
“It’s been an objective of the National Park Service for a long time to bring into the National Register of Historic Places resources associated with communities that were underrepresented,” he said.
In the early years of the National Register, now 50 years old, listings were primarily focused on colonial era buildings and resources.
“They realized the National Register was becoming very biased toward European resources from the founding years of the republic. It was also focusing a lot on the grander types of structures, the mansions, the big churches, as opposed to more humble resources that also speak a lot to the history and nature of human life,” Hare said.
State preservationists have already documented Rosenwald schools in the Tidewater area, he said, as the focus now shifts to the Piedmont.
“This was an extremely important effort in the early 20th century to try to somewhat right the injustice of denying African Americans access to public education,” he said of the major school construction project. “They were also very consciously designed and constructed based on at the time very advanced theories on what created a good interior learning space. This was such a major national effort.”
Hare estimated a three-year timeline for the Piedmont Rosenwald survey that will be conducted by Preservation Virginia on behalf of the Department of Historic Resources.
Scrabble School memories
At the Scrabble School, built 1921, every day started with prayer, said Roberts, of Culpeper.
“We always began the day with a devotional period which we took turns leading,” she said. “We said the Pledge of Allegiance, had prayers and read from the scriptures - all the things people are afraid to do now.”
She remembered the names of songs they would sing, including “Give of Your Best to Your Master” and “Fairest Lord Jesus.” The school was divided in half with grades first through third on one side and fourth through seventh on the other side, Roberts said.
Miss C.A. Williams was a teacher and also the principal, and boy was she strict, she added.
“Everybody who had her knew that she didn’t take anything from anyone,” Roberts said. “She was the disciplinarian, with a paddle.”
Nearly forgotten after it closed in 1967 with integration, the Scrabble School reopened in 2009 after an extensive renovation. In addition to the Rappahannock Senior Center, it now houses the Rappahannock African-American Heritage Center.
Woodville resident Isaiah Wallace, born 1876 the grandson of a slave, is credited with leading the effort to build the Scrabble School out of a desire to increase educational opportunities for fellow African-Americans, according to the National Register.
Wallace, and his second wife Mary “Lila” Dangerfield, a local school teacher and education activist, went on to raise community support for the Rosenwald School in Culpeper, “prompted by the deplorable conditions at the school in Eldorado where Lila taught and in the town where they lived,” according to the National Register.
Important to the people
Sonny Epperson, a former member of the Culpeper County School Board, today lives with his wife, Ilona, in an old schoolhouse in Eldorado -possibly the Rosenwald Thompson School as aforementioned.
“There was a Thompson store that used to be down there across the road,” he said during a recent unannounced visit by roving reporters.
Epperson, 74, moved to Culpeper in 1983 when he took over Toliver’s Store later situated in the schoolhouse. Known for his barbecue and ribs, Epperson ran the store until two years ago when his health forced him to retire. The old schoolhouse building, which he dates circa 1930, is now Epperson’s home having been beautifully transformed.
“Back during that time, I went to a school exactly like it down in Brunswick County,” said Epperson, who graduated in 1961, the year before integration.
During his time on the school board here in the 1990s, Epperson was instrumental in restoring the name of George Washington Carver back on the sign outside of the regional high school for black students along U.S. 15 in Culpeper.
The name of the African-American botanist and inventor was removed by officials when the building became Piedmont Vocational School.
“Preserving the history, it’s important to the people,” Epperson said.
Only 65 of the more than 360 Rosenwald schools built in Virginia are listed on the Virginia Cultural Resource Information System maintained by the Dept. of Historic Resources, not including the one in Culpeper, according to Hare.
“Which is not to say that is doesn’t exist.” he said. “It also points out the valuable service that the upcoming survey project will have.”
In announcing a total of $500,000 in grants supporting underrepresented communities, former Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said the nation had been shaped by a diverse array of Americans.
“Yet the National Register of Historic Places does not appropriately reflect this rich diversity,” she said. “These grants will enable us to work with partners to identify important sites that will help tell a more complete story.”
___
Information from: Culpeper Star-Exponent, https://www.starexponent.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.