Former Rosenwald School Building in NC

Central School, Asheboro North Carolina

Date added: April 08, 2024

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North Carolina
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Front elevation, 1926 building and 1948 wing (1992)

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Erected in 1926 in the East Side neighborhood of the small town of Asheboro, Randolph County, North Carolina, Central School is a well-preserved example of the Rosenwald Schools built for African-American children throughout the South in the early twentieth century. Some construction money came from the county school board, but much was donated by black private citizens and by the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The Fund, established by the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company to aid Southern black education, also provided state-of-the-art plans for the structure. Central School is a one-story, gable-roofed brick building based directly on the design entitled "Seven Teacher Community School, to Face East or West Only," published in the Fund's 1924 pattern book Community School Plans, Bulletin #3. The 1926 structure is in good original condition. Weather and vandalism have caused deterioration of window frames, but window openings have not been filled in, a common alteration to Rosenwald schools elsewhere in North Carolina. Even the interior wainscoting and wooden floors and ceilings typical of Rosenwald designs remain intact in some areas of Central School. A large two-level International Style wing was added to the north end of the original building in 1948, nearly doubling the facility's size but barely disturbing the Rosenwald structure. Behind the original building stands a gymnasium building and an elementary classroom building, both erected in the 1950s and separated from the tract by a north-south driveway and parking area that bisect the school property. For much of its history, Central School was the only secondary school serving black residents of Randolph County. It formed an integral part of black life for thousands of families, not only as an educational facility, but as a county-wide center for community events until it closed in 1969. Today Central School remains the centerpiece of one of Asheboro's largest African-American neighborhoods, and the neighborhood organization is working to achieve its adaptive reuse as apartments for elderly and handicapped persons.

Asheboro developed as the main courthouse and market town for Randolph County, located in the gently rolling hills of the North Carolina Piedmont. The county was largely a place of small farms until the arrival of railroads in the 1890s. Farming remained a mainstay, but furniture manufacturing and (for whites) textile manufacturing added a degree of new economic momentum. By the mid-twentieth century, Randolph boasted some 50,000 citizens, 7,000 of whom lived at the county seat.

As elsewhere in the South, public education came slowly to Randolph County for whites and even more slowly for blacks. The first halting step had taken place back in 1839 when the state legislature suggested that counties establish schools for white children, and set up a Literary Fund to provide small amounts of money to assist localities in the task. For black children, however, state law specifically prohibited education during the slavery era before the Civil War. After the War, the new Republican Party made the first concerted effort to bring schooling to all North Carolinians, black and white. The Constitution of 1868 mandated free schools for all children ages six to twenty-one. But as old-line Democrats regained control of state and local government following Reconstruction, they often refused to appropriate money to obey the provisions of the Constitution. Northern religious groups made efforts to fill the void, raising funds and sending missionaries South to help build and staff schools for whites and especially for the newly-freed blacks. In central North Carolina, long a Quaker stronghold, the Baltimore Association of Friends (Quaker) was particularly active. Mr. William Mead, a Quaker from Brooklyn, New York, arrived in Asheboro in 1882 or 1883 to serve as principal of an Asheboro Negro School.

Despite such philanthropy, schooling in Randolph County, as elsewhere in North Carolina, remained rudimentary. Schools were mostly one-room affairs, operating during the weeks when children were not needed for farm chores, and providing students with only a few years of elementary education. Not until new economic forces were unleashed by improved railroad connections and industrial change did North Carolinians see much need for schooling beyond basic reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Modern schools arrived on the heels of the nationwide Progressive movement around the turn of the century. Progressivism took as one of its main aims the upgrading of education, so that all Americans might better take part in the nation's rapidly-expanding commercial economy. North Carolina's largest industrial cities began building the state's first "graded" schools in the 1880s, and the movement got a boost when Progressive governor Charles B. Aycock made public education a key plank in his election platform in 1900. Over the next years, more and more North Carolina communities adopted the notion of graded schools. In 1909 Asheboro, inspired by its newfound railroad prosperity, built a handsome brick Graded School for white children on Fayetteville Street. Two years later, a smaller wooden Asheboro Colored Graded School was erected on Greensboro Street at the edge of the city for black children.

Again, it fell to outside philanthropists to create a semblance of equal opportunity for North Carolina's African-American population. Several Progressive-era industrialists, including Standard Oil's John D. Rockefeller and the Southern Railway's William Baldwin, expressed concern that the under-educated South was holding back the economic progress of the nation as a whole. Indeed, as the historian Louis Harlan has shown, local outlays for black schooling were falling further and further behind those for whites during the Progressive years. In the 1910s, one businessman decided to take special aim at the problem of substandard school buildings. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago was growing rich as president of the mammoth mail-order concern Sears, Roebuck and Company. Rosenwald, son of a poor Jewish peddler, made the decision to use part of his new wealth to improve the lot of other less-fortunate Americans. In partnership with black educator Booker T. Washington, Rosenwald devised a program to help African-Americans all across the South erect community schools.

The Rosenwald program was intended to both erect schools and foster a commitment to their operation. Julius Rosenwald put up about one-fourth of the cost of each new structure, and provided state-of-the-art plans for efficient buildings. The local black community was charged with raising a matching amount, a daunting task in an era when most blacks were sharecroppers and domestics who seldom saw much money. Finally, the local white community was expected to contribute toward the construction, and the white-dominated local school board had to agree to staff and operate the facility once construction was finished. The program was extremely successful. By its close in 1932, 5,357 Rosenwald buildings stood in fifteen Southern states.

Asheboro's Central School was one of approximately 14 seven-teacher schools erected in North Carolina with assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. North Carolina was the most active state participating in the Fund, building 813 schools from the 1910s through 1932. Most of the buildings were small, ranging from one to four teachers, and most were of wood. But in the Fund's later years, an attempt was made to erect at least one school in each county that would hold upper as well as lower grades, and many of these larger structures were of brick. It is not known how many Rosenwald buildings survive in North Carolina today.

Asheboro's Rosenwald school stood at the center of a proud black neighborhood when its first classes met in 1926. A generation earlier the area had been the farmland of Elijah Moffitt, a white lawyer who served as Mayor of Asheboro 1905 - 1907. During the 1900s Moffitt began selling lots in his 64 1/2 acre tract on the eastern edge of the city to black residents. Among the first buyers were Lucy and Zachariah Franks, for whom present-day Frank Street is named, and Daniel Watkins, for whom Watkins Street is likely named. After Moffitt's death in 1916, the subdivision was formally surveyed and named Moffitt Heights. Moffitt's heirs continued selling land to African-American buyers, and surrounding landowners did as well. Today this area constitutes the predominantly black East Side neighborhood.

In the 1920s, residents of Moffitt Heights hit upon a strategy to win a school for their subdivision. Initially, Julius Rosenwald's gifts had been reserved for rural schools, but during the 1920s, Rosenwald money became available for "consolidated" schools offering upper grades in farm towns. Asheboro's African-American community convinced the local school board to apply. News of the school's construction was cause for rejoicing throughout Randolph County. Zachariah Franks himself, a brick mason by trade, laid the cornerstone in a celebration that featured fellow members of his Odd Fellows fraternal order in their full regalia. On the January day when the building was completed, students from the old Asheboro Colored School on Greensboro Road marched triumphantly down the hill to the new facility, each carrying a chair from the old building.

The Rosenwald structure was a great improvement. It had electric lights, and its seven classrooms meant that teachers could now offer upper-level (8^th through 11th) grades, though they still had to double up two grades in several classrooms. The old building "didn't have but four rooms" and four teachers, while the new one had seven rooms and seven teachers, remembers Ruth McCrae, who made the transition as a student. The brick school was also much sturdier. Recalls McCrae, "When we moved out of that building it was January … and we weren't out of that building but three months -- March -- when the wind blew that school down! Just completely flattened it! There was nothing standing."

Children came from all corners of Randolph County to take advantage of upper-grade education. In Central School's early years, there were no buses for black youngsters. Instead, farm families would send children in to live with a relative in town during the school year. Those without the luxury of relatives might find accommodations as servants in Asheboro homes, cooking and cleaning to win the opportunity for education.

Central School was more than just a place for schoolchildren during the day, East Side residents remember. It was often the site of after-hours fund-raisers, in the form of fish fries, chicken pie suppers, ice cream suppers, and cake walks, to benefit the needy in the community or to buy equipment for the school. One of the more popular events was the "box party," described by Ruth McCrae as "when ladies would fix a box of food and the gentlemen would bid on the box according to who made the box." Many events were held to supplement the budget of the school itself, recalls McCrae, including an annual May Day celebration. "They had a pretty strong PTA. Everybody worked and raised money for it." But the wider community also regularly utilized the school's facilities, including the Odd Fellows and other civic organizations. "They used the auditorium to play basketball, have plays, and any church or community group who wanted to use it could have that privilege." Perhaps most importantly, the school was the meeting place for the Asheboro Civic Club, the neighborhood association that played a vital role in lobbying for government action in the era when few African-Americans were allowed to vote or participate formally in municipal affairs. One of the Civic Club's major accomplishments came in 1963 when it succeeded to convincing the Asheboro City Council to hire the town's first black policeman, Bryan Headen.

The most dynamic time in Central School's history seems to have been the late 1940s and 1950s. WWII helped energize a generation of black Southerners, who returned from military service impatient with the world of limited opportunity. One such individual at Central was James H. Morgan, who came to Asheboro after service in the elite brass band of the Navy In-Flight Training School. At Central High, Morgan taught math, physics, chemistry, biology, and; for the first time in the school's history, band. Students located instruments in Greensboro pawn shops and created uniforms out of cast-off clothes. Soon annual band concerts were a highlight of community life, and the band was winning renown at competitions outside the county.

Morgan found an able ally in the person of Principal J. N. Gill. Gill had arrived in 1946 and quickly displayed a persistent drive to secure a fair share of supplies and funds for his school from the white school board. In 1948, in part due to Gill's urging, the Board allocated money to replace a temporary wooden classroom that teachers had nicknamed "The Chicken Coop." In its stead rose a two-level brick wing that held additional classrooms (finally there would be one for each grade), indoor bathrooms, and a cafeteria. In 1953 Gill won permission for the enlarged facility to take the name "Central High School."

Gill was further aided by national developments on the civil rights front. In 1950 the NAACP won the Supreme Court case Sweatt v. Painter, which held that henceforth Southern districts must provide facilities which were truly equal. The full promise of the ruling was never fulfilled, but some improvements did come to Asheboro. In 1952 officials erected a gymnasium building behind Central High, ending the era when students had to move chairs out of the auditorium to clear space for games. A few years later the authorities granted money for the construction of a small free-standing classroom building for elementary education.

The same forces that brought the grudging upgrading of Central School eventually led to its closing. In 1954 the NAACP won the landmark ruling in the case Brown v Board of Education that declared that separate education for the races should be ended. Rather than upgrade substandard historically black facilities, school officials often simply closed black schools. In 1964 high school students were transferred from Central, and it briefly became an elementary school. In 1969 it closed completely. The building was used sporadically by the Board of Education for a sheltered workshop and for other semi-educational functions, but eventually it was auctioned off.

In 1981 the school was purchased by the East Side Improvement Association. The neighborhood group revitalized the gym as a community recreation facility, remodeled the elementary ed building as a day-care center, and laid plans to convert the main structure into senior citizens housing. Today, the Asheboro Rosenwald School continues its historic function as a center of the East Side African-American community.

Building Description

Central School stands at the heart of the East Side neighborhood in Asheboro, a small courthouse town serving the county of Randolph in North Carolina's Piedmont region. Though African-Americans have owned land and built houses in the East Side area since the 1900s, most structures today appear to date from the 1920s - 1960s. The school property occupies half a block bounded on the west by Watkins Street, on the south by Frank Street, and on the north by Brewer Street. The 1926 building and the 1948 wing face Watkins Street. The lot slopes gently up from Watkins Street. A low retaining wall consisting of three courses of plain concrete block runs along the street; the school sits perhaps ten yards back from that. Behind the school is a tarmac driveway and parking lot, which forms the eastern boundary of the property. Behind the parking lot stands the 1952 free-standing red brick gymnasium, to the southeast, and the later free-standing one-story red brick elementary building (extensively renovated as a daycare center circa 1990). Land continues to slope upward into the residential area behind the school.

Asheboro's 1926 Central School building draws its design directly from plans published by the Julius Rosenwald Fund. In floorplan, the building resembles a "T" with the front (top) of the "T" facing due west. Classrooms line a central corridor in the front wing, and an auditorium extends to the rear. Stylistically the exterior is a functional-looking symmetrical composition of red brick and wooden windows, with the barest hint of Bungalow influence in the treatment of roof details. The structure has been altered very little over the years.

The 1926 building rests on a red brick foundation and exterior walls are constructed of the same material. The bricks are laid in common bond, with a header course every sixth course. The brickwork is very straightforward; a slightly corbelled double course marks the sill of each window, but otherwise there is no special trim, not even a watercourse to mark a break between the foundation and main walls. A central front porch projects from the main block. Its base and steps, along with a second set of steps on the south end of the structure, feature the same brickwork as the main walls. At the southwest corner of the building, facing south, is a white marble cornerstone that was brought from the previous Asheboro Colored Graded School. It bears the date 1911, signifying the construction of that earlier building.

Abundant light was a major concern in the design of Rosenwald schools, and the results can be seen in the big banks of original double-hung sash units across the front of the 1926 building. Windows and doors are arranged symmetrically in the facade. Under the porch roof, the main entrance to the building features a pair of doors that appear to be original, each one made of wood with a nine-pane window and two panels below. The doorway is topped by a 12-pane fixed transom and flanked by 3-pane sidelights. On either side of this entry unit is a small individual 6-over-6 pane double-hung window. Beyond the porch are banks of 9-over-9 pane windows lighting two classrooms to the left and two to the right. Each classroom has multiple windows, creating a "6 - 5 - porch - 5 - 6" rhythm across the facade. This pattern differs just a bit from that in the published plans, which used a "5 - 5 - porch - 5 - 5" arrangement. Rosenwald schools typically did not follow pattern book designs exactly in matters of fenestration arrangement.

Similar symmetrically arranged windows continue around the 1926 building. On the back of the main wing and on the sides of the auditorium wing, 9-over-9 pane double-hung windows are grouped in 3s and 6s. The south end of the main wing features two pairs of 6-over-6 pane windows. These flank a central doorway. Each of the two doors has a four-pane window with three panels below and one panel above; these doors appear to be original. Above the doorway is a 12-pane fixed transom, shaded by a small gable roof supported by heavy Bungalow-style brackets. In the wall above the roof is a vertical opening with a wooden louver intended to cool the attic. The back end of the auditorium wing is even plainer. It is simply a blank brick wall with a door at each side (the doorways were part of the original design; one has been bricked in, and the other has a door that appears not to be original), and a vertical louvered opening above.

The 1926 building has a gable roof covered with asphalt shingles of relatively recent vintage. Eaves extend outward from the building a couple of feet and show exposed rafter ends that reflect the Bungalow style popular for residential architecture in the 1920s. At the front of the building, two shed-roofed dormers with wood-shingled siding and eight-pane windows pierce the main roof. The dormers flank the central front porch, whose gable roof rests upon four plain square wooden columns. The gable peak is finished with vertical weatherboard siding.

Only relatively minor changes have affected the exterior of the 1926 building. The addition of the 1948 wing (described below) covered the north end of the main wing. One window on the auditorium was replaced with a double door. On the rear of the main wing, north of the auditorium and hidden from view from the street, a bank of windows was removed in 1948 or later. A double door was inserted in part of the opening, a large brick exterior chimney was built, and the rest of the opening was bricked in. During the years that the structure has stood vacant, weather and vandalism have caused deterioration of many of the original window frames. Little glass remains, and while the original arrangement of sash and mullions is still clearly visible, the wood is broken and rotted.

The interior of the 1926 building likewise retains much of its original layout and detailing. Eight rooms, plus an entrance hall and the auditorium, originally lined the central corridor that runs the length of the main wing. Along the front of the building were four full-sized classrooms and an entrance hall; all are intact today. Along the back of the wing, Rosenwald plans called for two more full-sized classrooms, the auditorium, and a smaller "industrial room" and an "office and library;" in recent years the "industrial room" and the northeast classroom have been combined into one large space via the demolition of a wall. Recent temporary partitions have created two smaller cubicles inside this room. A similar easily-removable partition has also subdivided the entrance hall into two rooms.

The decor is spartan in the 1926 structure, retaining high tongue-and-groove wooden ceilings, plaster walls and some original trim. The central corridor and the entrance hall feature tongue-and-groove wainscoting with a wide mopboard and a molded chair rail (missing in some places). Along the corridor, small rectangular three-pane "breeze windows" high up in the walls help bring light and air from the classrooms. Doorways to the classrooms retain their transom windows, though all the original doors were replaced with new ones probably in the 1950s or 1960s. Inside the classrooms, the wainscoting continues. Blackboards survive in most rooms, though seriously deteriorated. The four front classrooms each include a cloakroom running the full length of one wall, a characteristic feature of the Rosenwald designs. Several original doors, each with five horizontal panels, survive on the cloakrooms. Throughout the 1926 building the window and door surrounds are simple wide boards, yet another touch of the Bungalow style. Remnants of electric lighting remain, a mix of florescent and incandescent ceiling fixtures that are likely not original, as do the bulky radiators of the school's steam-heat system.

The largest interior feature of the 1926 building is the auditorium, a flat-floored space which opens off the main corridor and extends back to form the rear wing. Rosenwald plans suggested a wall between the classroom corridor and the auditorium, but that wall was omitted here to create a larger and more flexible space. Side walls have tongue-and-grove wainscoting, and similar wood sheaths the front of the stage. Electric light fixtures, which once probably held globe lights suspended from their chains, appear to date from the 1920s and form two rows along the ceiling. The stage, raised five steps above the floor, occupies the east end of the space.

In 1948, the Randolph County Board of Education awarded bids for the construction of a substantial addition to the school. The $63,000 north wing roughly doubled the size of the facility, adding classrooms, indoor bathrooms, and a lower-level space for a cafeteria and a vocational classroom. Today weather and vandalism have taken their toll on this wing, but except for deterioration, the 1948 building looks much as it did when it opened.

The exterior of the 1948 wing uses red brick and has general proportions that echo those of the older building, but in other ways it asserts stylistic allegiance to the International Style popular at mid-century. Instead of a gabled roof the wing has a flat roof. Instead of wooden, symmetrically-arranged windows, the wing features metal-framed windows and door openings, arranged asymmetrically. The basic window unit uses 2-over-4-over-4 fixed panes; each classroom is lit by a bank of 5 window units. The building's main (upper) floor is at the same level as that of the Rosenwald building. The lower level takes advantage of the gently sloping site; front windows are at ground level, but rear cafeteria windows are below ground in a light well that runs along the back of the structure. A brick portico shades a front entrance to the lower level. At the north end of the building, heavy brick stairs lead to an upper entrance, while simultaneously sheltering another lower entrance. The original metal double doors, each with two panes of glass above a solid panel, survive in poor repair.

Inside, the 1948 wing has four classrooms upstairs, plus a restroom and a small office. They line a central hall that continues the hall of the 1926 building. Instead of wooden wainscoting and plaster, the interior finish is painted concrete block with a linoleum tile floor. Classroom doors have metal surrounds, and hinged transoms above. The restroom and office and a stairwell (enclosed in recent years) are at the end of hall immediately adjoining the older building.

Downstairs there is a similar central hall. Along the back of the building is another restroom, then the cafeteria, which is divided into a dining room and a food-prep space that includes its own small restroom and storage room. The front of the building is comprised of a large classroom with two small office-like spaces off it. Community residents remember that this area was used for Home Economics classes.