Editor, Gazette-Journal:
This year, 2023, marks the 100th anniversary of two incredibly significant events. One, the destruction of a town for African Americans and the other, the construction of a school for African Americans.
The destruction of a town is the Rosewood Massacre in Levy County, Florida, and the construction of a school is the Woodville School in Gloucester County, Virginia. In both instances, blacks and whites came together to aid those in need.
In 1923, Rosewood, a black town in Florida, was burned to the ground, its people murdered by 200 white men. Some black townspeople escaped and survived because of the courage and compassion of a few extraordinary white men and women.
In 1912, Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald began collaborating on addressing the problem of the inferior quality of the schools for African Americans in Southern states.
In 1923, the Woodville School construction story begins by linking Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and Gloucester’...