After Ann Smithwick and her husband, Robin, moved in 12 years ago, neighbors told them their home, a 1915 schoolhouse in Fayette County, was a “Rosenwald school.”

“I didn’t really know what that meant,” she said.

After some research, Smithwick, 43, discovered her house was the old Braden-Sinai School, one of more than 5,000 schoolhouses built in the South for African-Americans around the turn of the 20th century by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, then CEO and president of Sears Roebuck and Co., and Booker T. Washington, who was president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Five years ago, Smithwick, a professional photographer, took a 1920s camera and began documenting people who attended school at her house and the Allen-White School, a nearby Rosenwald grade/high school in Whiteville.

Her photos are featured in “Rosenwald Revisited: Wisdom from the Elders” through March 15 at the National Civil Rights Museum. The exhibit also includes a video by Willie Bearden.

The exhibit is important because the Rosenwald schools “really laid the foundation for everything that has happened for African-Americans,” said Beverly Robertson, National Civil Rights Museum president. “Education has been the foundation. During the days Rosenwald did his work with Booker T. Washington there were no opportunities or very limited opportunities for African-Americans. This really

started the quest for education in a powerful way.”

“I’m so excited to see this come to fruition,” said Jeffrey D. Nesin, Memphis College of Art president. “I think this is one of the most marvelous, least-told stories of the American South. And Ann has set herself the goal of documenting it and bringing it to consciousness with such art and grace.”

Smithwick’s 7,100-square-foot home with 12-foot ceilings includes an addition built in the 1950s. The original building had four rooms and three cloak rooms.

When they bought the house, part of it still looked like a school: two old schoolrooms in the addition had the original green blackboards. A long row of coat hooks stretched across a wall in a hallway. Ten years ago, Smithwick began researching Rosenwald schoolhouses.

“He (Rosenwald) and Booker T. Washington got to be friends and ended up collaborating to build schoolhouses across the South, most of them in rural communities where children came from the cotton fields for the very first time to be educated.

“It was a very joyful period for them because they were coming together to be with their friends and have a chance to learn.”

Rosenwald suggested constructing pre-fabricated Sears buildings, but Washington wanted the community members to build the schools so they would be involved.

Community residents raised the money to construct the buildings and Rosenwald matched the amount.

Many of the schools built between 1913 and 1932 remained in operation until the 1960s and ’70s when Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, the 1954 Supreme Court ruling against racial segregation, was implemented.

A Rosenwald school in the Orange Mound neighborhood in Memphis was demolished in the 1950s.

When the National Historic Trust in Washington declared the Rosenwald schools among the most endangered places , Smithwick went to work.

She attended a conference on the schools at Nashville’s Fisk University four years ago. People gathered to learn how to get funding to refurbish surviving Rosenwald schoolhouses in their community. Some of the structures again are used as schools while others are museums and community centers.

Smithwick met Dr. Peter Ascoli, Rosenwald’s grandson, at the Fisk conference. “He saw my work and my photographs and was very interested, enthusiastic.”

A t the opening of the show Friday night Ascoli said, “It’s a terrific exhibit. I think it’s the quality of the photographs. They convey so much.”

Evelyn Robertson Jr. from Whiteville got Smithwick in touch with former Rosenwald school students.

Smithwick used a large format 1920s Kodak camera that once belonged to a portrait photographer. “I’m not technical at all,” she said. “There’s thumb prints on the pictures. That’s fine with me. To try to pull from each individual that I was having the opportunity to be with was a lot more important than just perfection. I think it shows in their hearts and eyes.”

She used platinum, palladium and selenium toners to give the photos warmth. “The whole story is very warm. That’s why I wanted it to have that richness.

“How grateful they were to have the opportunity to even step foot in a school and what a gift it was to them, I think that is the real message I cumulatively gathered from every person I interviewed. They were so moved by the opportunity to go to school.”

- Michael Donahue: 529-2797.

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“Rosenwald Revisited: Wisdom from the Elders”

Exhibition of photos by Ann Smithwick, through March 15 at the National Civil Rights Museum

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“I think this is one of the most marvelous, least-told stories of the American South.”

Jeffrey D. Nesin, Memphis College of Art president

Caption: Ann Smithwick

The old Braden-Sinai School is photographer Ann Smithwick’s home.

Ann Smithwick’s photos document people who attended two “Rosenwald schools” in southwestern Tennessee. The photos are on display at the National Civil Rights Museum. Clockwise, from top left, are “Patricia,” “Josie,” “Sonnie and Izola,” and “Jesse.”

The Braden-Sinai School in Fayette County was among thousands built for African-Americans around the turn of the 20th century by Sears CEO Julius Rosenwald and Tuskegee Institute president Booker T. Washington.

Ann Smithwick

Keywords: art exhibition memphis black history school fayette co
Document Number: 1169035BE9372D90

This article is © 2007- Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN)

Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN)

School legacy — Rosenwald students come to life in National Civil Rights Museum exhibit

Date: January 9, 2007
Section: Features
Page: M1
Illustration: Photos
Source:    Michael Donahue / donahue@commercialappeal.com
Edition: Final