About five miles outside of Kingsland lies the Kinlaw Rosenwald School, which served as a beacon of education and a community hub for African Americans in Camden County during the early 1900s. Founded in 1921, the Kinlaw School was one of four schools in Camden County built to serve the educational needs of African Americans with funds from the Rural School Building Program of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. What began as a charitable initiative came to be what some consider the most crucial program to advance education for African Americans in the South during the early twentieth century. The National Trust for Historic Preservation lists all Rosenwald Schools as one of the country’s 11 most endangered historic places. This school structure, located at 1197 Kinlaw Rd in Woodbine, became an integral part of the community and is the only Rosenwald School in the county that remains standing today.
As educating the formerly enslaved became legal in the years following the Civil War, the Freedmen’s Bureau set up schools for the recently emancipated. Sadly, many states and local governments did not support the education of formerly enslaved people, with schools often grossly underfunded and classes held in log cabins, lodges, or local churches. Such was the case in Kinlaw, a bustling African-American community established in 1865 after the war ended. Despite opposition, the education of the formerly enslaved was important to Kinlaw residents. In 1896, the county purchased a one-acre plot of land and built a one-room schoolhouse for the African-American children of the community. However, as the hunger for learning became an increasing need for the residents of Kinlaw, it became evident that a larger structure was necessary to accommodate the rising number of those seeking education. Since local governments devoted very little state tax money to educating the recently emancipated population, residents of Kinlaw sought to raise funds to build schools to accommodate the number of children pursuing instruction beyond a 6th-grade level. Local educator and the supervisor of Black schools in the county, Matilda Harris, heard of a program started by the prominent educator Booker T Washington and famous businessman Julius Rosenwald that funded the building of schoolhouses for African-American children in rural communities throughout the South. Harris approached the community about the program, and the residents of Kinlaw began fundraising to establish the new school.
The Rosenwald School Fund began as an experiment in 1912 when Booker T Washington (a formerly enslaved person who became the founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama) persuaded Julius Rosenwald ( a Jewish philanthropist and part owner of Sears Roebuck and Company) to invest money in building six schools in rural Alabama to educate African Americans. The program was so successful that it expanded and eventually funded almost 5,000 schools across 15 southern states. The schools featured state-of-the-art, modern architectural design that often surpassed the quality of many southern schools at the time. Rosenwald Schools frequently served as design models and inspiration for both Black and White schools built outside the program. Ultimately, Georgia built 242 Rosenwald Schools, 12 teacher homes, and seven shops using Rosenwald funds, with 103 of the state’s counties having at least one school in their community.
Ground broke on the four-room schoolhouse in Kinlaw in July 1921, with funds raised from the Kinlaw community ($909), donations from white citizens ($150), the county ($800), and the Rosenwald School Fund ($1000). While state of the art at the time, it featured a somewhat modest design by today’s standards with a cafeteria, a large gathering room, and a classroom in the front. Classes began in the Fall of that year and served school-aged children through the seventh grade. The school became a central fixture in the African-American community with activities and fairs that saw countywide participation.
Sadly, the Kinlaw School closed when schools consolidated during School Integration in 1954. The building remains intact and is the only Rosenwald school in the county that remains standing and in its original location. Efforts are underway to restore the once prominent school and community center. For more information on how to support the restoration of this historic landmark, please visit https://kinlawrosenwald.wixsite.com/school.
References
Barefoot, P. (2001). Education. In St. Marys and Camden County (pp. 1114). Arcadia.
Brown, B. (2022, July 11). Restoration of the Kinlaw Rosenwald School, Camden County. Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown.
College of Coastal Georgia. (2023). Research Guides: Georgia’s Rosenwald School Legacy: Introduction. https://libguides.ccga.edu/rosenwald
Eaton, J. (2004, November). Reflections – Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network.
Jackson, G. (2016, May 4). Drive to Save Historic School Building Begins. The Brunswick News. https://thebrunswicknews.com/news/local_news/drive-to-save-historic-school-building-begins/article_19933970-d847-5393-ba46-3ce8e4c9e0ae.html
Essay, Kinlaw Community, Camden County History Files, Bryan-Lang Archives, Woodbine, Georgia. 2023 August 11.
Essay, Kinlaw School, Thompson, Eloise Baily. Wandering In Camden: Historical Sketches of Camden County, Georgia and Beyond. River City Printing (2008).
History, Kinlaw (Rosenwald) School, Camden County History Files, Bryan-Lang Archives, Woodbine, Georgia. 2023 August 11.
Jones, B. (2021). Rosenwald Schools. New Georgia Encyclopedia. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/education/rosenwald-schools/
National Trust for Historic Preservation. (2023). Rosenwald Schools: National Trust for Historic Preservation. Rosenwald Schools | National Trust for Historic Preservation. https://savingplaces.org/places/rosenwald-schools
South Georgia Normal & Industrial Institute Inc (SGNII) (2023). Home. Kinlaw Rosenwald School. https://kinlawrosenwald.wixsite.com/school
