By Jerry Klinger
MONROE, Louisiana — After a year and a half of fabrication delays, the Mt. Nebo/Rosenwald Elementary School marker was finally dedicated on Nov. 10. The dedication took place almost 100 years to the day when Mt. Nebo opened its doors to its first students in racially segregated Monroe. The marker was funded by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP).
Members of the Mt. Nebo community wore specially designed T-shirts with the elementary school image on them. Mt. Nebo was more than just an elementary school to them. Mt. Nebo was the door to opportunity, to liberation, to freedom.
The educational funding provided to the Black community of Monroe during the Jim Crow era was as minimal as possible. Blacks were valued for their labor only. Since antebellum times, an educated Black was a threat to the ordered segregated society.
Many people, even today, mistakenly believe freedom is owning land. Many people mistakenly believe freedom is making money. A different reality, a very Jewish one, is understood about freedom. Freedom is education.
Land can be taken away. Money can be taken away. A person’s physical freedom can be taken away. What can never be taken away is an educated mind. Education is portable wealth. Jewish history, the universal Jewish experience, has long memories of sudden banishment and degradation when war and political changes occur.
Julius Rosenwald, himself the child of German Jewish refugees forced to flee antisemitic oppression, made his fortune as the head of Sears and Robuck. He was imbued with core Jewish social progressive values. He was a modest man. He did not want his legacy to be the biggest tombstone in the cemetery. He wanted his legacy to be what he could do to make America and its imperfect past better for all Americans. It was his tikkun olam.
Rosenwald said – “I do not see how America can go ahead if part of its people are left behind… Blacks are America’s problem… By lifting others up, we also elevate ourselves.”
He partnered with Dr. Booker T. Washington. Washington had been a former slave who achieved his freedom through education. He rose to become the President of the Tuskegee Institute. From the nineteen-teens to the 1940s, the Rosenwald Fund undertook the largest privately funded school-building effort in American history.
The text of the two-sided marker reads.
The Mt. Nebo (Rosenwald) Elementary School was sited in the formerly segregated Prichard’s Addition/Atkins Quarters in Monroe, Louisiana. The school was built in 1924. It was a large one-room schoolhouse with interior movable divides, initially educating children from the 1st to 8th grades. It opened in November 1924 with 120 pupils seeking the opportunity of an education. Three teachers were assigned to Mt. Nebo by the Board of Education. The severe overcrowding was reduced a few years later when Mt. Nebo became a 1st to 4th-grade elementary school. It continued to serve Monroe’s Black Community’s educational needs until it was closed in the 1960s when Federal law mandated integration. During the 1920s-1930s, 8 Rosenwald schools and 1 teacher’s home were built in Ouachita Parish, among which were Britton-Chambers, McHenry-Mineral Springs (Extant), Mt Nebo-Monroe, Sterlington-Swartz, and West Monroe. Rosenwald schools were the foundation of formal education for African Americans in Ouachita Parish.
In 1911, Booker T. Washington, head of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, asked Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish Philanthropist, to serve on the board of directors at Tuskegee. Their unique partnership led to the creation of the Rosenwald Fund (1917) to support the education of African American children in the South, where segregated schools severely suffered from inadequate facilities and books. The Rosenwald Fund’s school building program organized local collaboration between Blacks and Whites for the common good. The Fund gave matching grants and provided technical support. Local communities raised funds together with public funds for school construction. The Rosenwald Fund closed in 1948. It had facilitated the construction of over 4,977 schools in 15 southern states. 1/3 of all Black children attended a Rosenwald School. 395 Rosenwald schools were built in Louisiana.
Erected 2024 by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation, Mt. Nebo Playground Committee City of Monroe.
One of the politicians who spoke at the dedication ceremony was a member of the local Nation of Islam’s Mosque #99 in Monroe. The Southern Poverty Law Center has long characterized the Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan, as a hate group targeting Whites and Jews in particular.
It was a strange situation; the speaker lauded Black Liberation next to a historical marker with the word Jewish in it. The marker clearly affirmed the Black Liberation that Mt. Nebo Elementary brought to the community came about because of a Jew. It was an uncomfortable contradiction.
Delving deeper into Monroe’s history, centered on the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, it was shocking to discover a major political scandal involving the former Mayor, Mayor James Earl “Jamie” Mayo. Mayor Mayo was the long-time Black Mayor of Monroe. He welcomed Louis Farrakhan to Monroe, where he was awarded the key to the city on two different occasions. Mayor Mayo, when questioned about Farrakhan’s racist incitement and enflaming separatist words, said, “Everything he (Farrakhan) said was true.”
Mayo finally answered why he honored Farrakhan. He said that, as mayor, he commonly awards keys to the city to various people, such as LGBTQ groups, who have done much for the city. Mayo would not distinguish between the non-hate LGBTQ groups and the racist, blatant antisemitism and hate of the Nation of Islam.
Mayor Mayo is not the Mayor of Monroe anymore. The Farrakhan story went global.
The Jewish American Society is a member of the Worldwide Daffodil Project. The Project is planting Daffodil Gardens around the world, first in memory of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust. The Gardens are really for all children suffering everywhere. The Project has planted over one million Daffodil bulbs in over 600 locations so far. One Daffodil bulb – one child is no longer forgotten. JASHP has planted thousands of bulbs to date.
An opportunity presented itself. Why not offer a Daffodil Garden to the City of Monroe’s Zoo? Many children go to the Zoo. The Zoo is within the same district as Mt. Nebo.
With each Daffodil Garden that JASHP donates, a permanent marker is included for fixing to a large centrally placed stone in the Garden.
The Text of the JASHP/Daffodil Project marker reads:
“Worldwide Daffodil Project
Children are the innocent victims of adult hatred, ignorance, and bigotry. During the Holocaust, 1939-1945, 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered. No child should ever be a victim again. “How can a person not be moved by compassion…and above all, how can anyone who remembers remain silent?” Elie Wiesel”
Will the JASHP-donated World Wide Daffodil Project garden be accepted? That is unknown. The offer had to be made.
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Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation www.JASHP.org