Education
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A Rosenwald School stood on this site. Educator Booker T. Washington enlisted philanthropist and Sears, Roebuck & Company CEO Julius Rosenwald to help fund the building of rural community schools for African American children. Between 1912 and 1932, Washington and Rosenwald collaborated to build 5,357 schools and buildings in fifteen states throughout the Jim Crow South. A delegation of Lake Alfred African American citizens petitioned the Polk County Board of Public Instruction to erect a school for their children. Permission was granted and Fruitlands Institute opened in 1929, named for the local real estate company which donated the land. The school was a Two-Teacher Type funded by African Americans $600, Whites $350, Public $1836, Rosenwald $500. The school was taken down in 1964.
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Lake Alfred, Florida · United States
