Schools of Hope: How Julius Rosenwald Helped Change African American Education

When Booker T. Washington, the famed African American educator, asked Julius Rosenwald, the wealthy president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and noted philanthropist, to help him build well-designed and fully equipped schools for black children, the face of education in the South changed for the better.

It was the early 1900s, a time of discrimination, racial segregation, and inadequate education for African Americans. Rosenwald created a special fund that in just twenty years built more than 5,300 schools attended by 600,000 black students. In this inspiring story, noted nonfiction writer Norman H. Finkelstein spotlights one man's legacy and the power of community action. Includes quotations, a detailed bibliography, and index.

Norman H. Finkelstein is the award-winning author of eighteen nonfiction books for young readers. He has won the National Jewish Book Award twice for Heeding the Call: Jewish Voices in America's Civil Rights Struggle and Forged in Freedom: Shaping the Jewish-American Experience (both Jewish Publication Society) and the Golden Kite Honor Book Award for Nonfiction for With Heroic Truth: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (Clarion Books). Three Across: The Great Transatlantic Race of 1927 was published by Calkins Creek in 2008. A resident of Framingham, Massachusetts, Finkelstein is a retired public school librarian and a longtime faculty member of Boston's Hebrew College. Visit normfinkelstein.com.