Malvern Rosenwald School | Abandoned Arkansas

Malvern Rosenwald School | Abandoned Arkansas

Julius Rosenwald, chairman of Sears Roebuck & Co., used his vast wealth to fund schools for African-American children all over the rural South. The schools served not only as classrooms but as community centers. The Rosenwald fund had aided in the building of 389 schools in Arkansas alone. The school in Malvern was built in 1929, has been in use ever since, and is currently under restoration. It's interesting to read how the architects oriented the school with windows to the east and the west to make the most of natural light and breezes while limiting the heat of all-day southern exposure.

One of the few extant Rosenwald Schools in Oklahoma is in Lima in Seminole County and sits abandoned and deteriorating. I came across it once while in the area to interview an MIT applicant, and I was stunned by the presence of this substantial public building in the middle of nowhere. In Oklahoma, the Rosenwald fund aided in the building of 176 schoolhouses in 44 counties, including Alsuma, Macon, Oak Hill, Rentie, and Snake Creek schools in Tulsa County, according to the Fisk University database of Rosenwald Schools.