Our Story

From Then - To Now

It is incredible how one small idea can grow into something truly special. Booker T Washington of the Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist, and president of Sears Roebuck & Co., teamed together to improve the education of African American children. The Rosenwald Fund created in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald donated matching grants to communities provided that the local community come up with matching funds, labor, and land to build schools for children. Over 5,000 schools, workshops, and teacher homes were built in the south and southwest.

With hopes of working with the city and county officials on building a more suitable high school facility for colored children a few of the African American people of Shelbyville, Tn. organized clubs, fund raisers, donations, and gifts totaling $1,700.00, the Rosenwald Club held monthly meetings with a Rosenwald Building Agent from Nashville Tn. named Professor Robert E Clay. Professor R. E. Clay was hired by officials of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. And in 1936 the Rosenwald club made a purchase of two lots of land "for the purpose of building a more suitable high school facility for the colored children", one from W.H. Gosling and one adjoining from Johnson Thompson and Wife that was a total of 3.53 acres of land more or less. However, the city, county, and government instead improved/rebuilt and added a new cafeteria and later a recreational gym to an existing school that was known as the McAdams school on Elm Street, its name changed to the Bedford County Training School, and therefore did not have need for all the funds, that was raised and donated, nor the land that was purchased by the Rosenwald Clubs.

So, the Rosenwald organization along with agreement by the court decided that they would build a Rosenwald Recreation and Community Building on the purchased land for the use, benefit and education of all colored people. After a couple of court appearances with the city of Shelbyville, and with the funds and the land returned back to the Rosenwald Clubs from the City of Shelbyville Public Schools, the building was then built in or around July 1946. It was used for a community center and kindergarten for the colored people. In 1999 for a period of 20 years the center was leased to the South-Central Human Resource Agency to be used as an Early Head Start. In 2020 the Rosenwald organization opened it back up for the use of the community.

Rosenwald Recreation & Community Center Trustee is rooted in the belief that we all have an inherent responsibility to make a meaningful difference in our community. With a variety of active projects and the collaboration with other non-profit organizations, we harness our skills and resources to successfully achieve our goals.
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