St. John Rosenwald School

Crowd gathers for the grand opening of the St. John Rosenwald School community center in Gordonsville, Virginia, November 2023.

National Park Service

Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck and Company, was a businessman and philanthropist who partnered with Booker T. Washington to build schools for African American children across fifteen states. The St. John Rosenwald School was built in 1922-1923 in Gordonsville, one of over 380 schools built in Virginia through the Julius Rosenwald Fund. St. John is a powerful reminder of the denial of African American access to public education systems and serves as an example of how a former school building can successfully be preserved and adapted to a new use for the community.

The St. John Family Life and Fitness Center, Inc. received two African American Civil Rights Grants from the National Park Service. These grants are supporting the rehabilitation of the former St. John Rosenwald School that is now a community and fitness center, and museum. The work included foundation stabilization, the installation of a heating and cooling system, plumbing, insulation, and electrical work for the structure that is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places. A grand reopening of the property was celebrated in November of 2023.

Since 2016, the African American Civil Rights program has provided over $100 million to document, protect, and celebrate the places and people participating in one of the greatest struggles in American history. The goal of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights grant program is to preserve and protect sites associated with the struggle for equality from the transatlantic slave trade forward. Additional funding is also made available to tell the civil rights story of all Americans. It is anticipated that the next notice of funding opportunity for the program will be available in the fall of 2024.