J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Andrew Feiler
Episode #20 Summary:
A Better Life for Their Children reveals the hidden history of the Rosenwald Schools, a transformative civil rights initiative, which provided education for Black students in 15 Southern states beginning in 1911.
Episode Notes
Andrew Feiler’s visually compelling narrative documents the generational impact of a unique challenge grant program. Created by Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, it served to educate Black children denied access to public schools. Through extensive research and diligent outreach Feiler weaves the irrevocably impacted life stories, with the historical and political benchmarks of desegregation. The threads reach to current historical figures such as the revered late Congressman, John Robert Lewis, a Rosenwald school alum, who wrote the book foreword, to luminaries such as Gordon Parks, Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, Rosenwald Fellowship recipients.
In this book group, Andrew Feiler discusses, among other things:
The concept awareness of creative choices to layer the intention of your visual narrative
The power of education to change history
Art and activism
The role of the portrait as foreseen by Fredrick Douglass
The impact and intersection of civic involvement, economics and politics
The austere beauty of William Christenberry and the agency of the land to tell its own story
When in Arkansas be sure to visit Toadsuck and Turkeyscratch
Referenced in the episode
For autographed/personalized books
“Rosenwald”, a film by Aviva Kempner
Isabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns
NYTImes - Boston First Black Mayor - in 91 years!