Eleanor Roosevelt School, Meriwether County, Georgia

Eleanor Roosevelt School - Meriwether County, Georgia 1937-1972

Franklin Roosevelt was impressed when he saw a Rosenwald school near his home in Warm Springs, Georgia. In 1929, he asked Samuel Smith, then leading the Rosenwald program, to build another school in Meriwether County. The local school board demurred, however, having just funded a new school for White students. Five years later, Roosevelt asked Rosenwald Fund president Edwin Embree to fulfill Smith's "commitment." Although the school building program had ended in 1932, Embree agreed to contribute to this one final school. A $12,000 grant from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped to secure the plan, but then the final funding came up $1,000 short. Roosevelt wrote a personal check to close the gap.

The Eleanor Roosevelt School, a five-teacher plan, opened in 1937 with President Roosevelt presiding at the dedication. Peeking out from behind the building's right side is a structure from a later era. In the early 1950s, several southern states began to foresee the outcome of litigation challenging school segregation. Attempting to demonstrate that they could deliver on "separate but equal," they launched programs to build new African American schools. These structures became known as equalization schools.

Georgia's equalization school program was the most extensive. To fund it, Governor Herman Talmadge pushed through the state's very first sales tax. From 1952 to 1962, about 1,200 new schools were built in the state, 700 for Whites and 500 for Blacks. The addition behind the Eleanor Roosevelt School was one of these, but the majority were new construction with brick veneer, horizontal metal windows, and low flat roofs. Equalization schools were ultimately ruled unconstitutional. As integration was implemented, most of the new Black schools closed because the White community was unwilling to send their children to what had been schools for African Americans.

About the photographer: Andrew Feiler

Andrew Feiler is a fifth-generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he has been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South. Andrew has long been active in civic life. He has helped create over a dozen community initiatives, serves on multiple not-for-profit boards, and is an active advisor to numerous elected officials and political candidates. His art is an extension of his civic values.

Andrew's photographs have been featured in such publications as Smithsonian, Wall Street Journal, Architect, Preservation, Slate, Lenscratch, Oxford American, and The Bitter Southerner. His work has been displayed in galleries and museums including solo exhibitions at such venues as the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C., International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC, and Burrison Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His work is in a number of public and private collections including that of Atlanta University Center and Emory University. More of his work can be seen at andrewfeiler.com.