The tour will begin at 3 p.m. at the farm, a living museum that replicates an African-American farming community as it existed in South Carolina between 1865 and 1900. The farm is located at 9515 Freewoods Road in Burgess, near Myrtle Beach. A reception will follow the tour at 4:30 p.m. The tour is free. The cost of the reception is $5, and tickets are required.

The workshop and reunion, which will include a presentation of research on Rosenwald schools in Horry County, will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the new St. James High School at Highway 707 at Salem Road in Burgess. A Southern supper will follow. The cost of the supper is $12, and tickets are required.

Inspired by Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Julius Rosenwald, president and chair of the board of Sears Roebuck and Co., created a fund to build schools for African-American children, mostly in rural communities, in the early 1900s.

“I can’t imagine what the status of education would be in rural communities today had it not been for Julius Rosenwald,” said O’Neal Smalls, a USC law professor, who attended a Rosenwald school in Horry County and is helping coordinate the events. “It’s also important to other to see how someone was willing to take a risk—to identify a need and act on it—so that members of our generation can see what one man can do.”

The Rosenwald Plan called for African Americans to participate in the building of schools in their communities, including land acquisition, fund raising, school management, and curriculum. Working together, African Americans built about 500 Rosenwald schools in South Carolina, the third highest number in the country, through the early 1930s. Many of them operated until desegregation in the early 1970s.

Peter M. Ascoli, a grandson of Rosenwald from Chicago, Ill., will speak at the reunion about his grandfather and Rosenwald schools. Other speakers will include Inez M. Tenebaum, state superintendent of education, who will talk about the state’s role in the Rosenwald program; former S.C. Gov. Robert McNair, a member of the advisory board of the Freewoods Foundation of Freewoods Farm; and Gerrita Postlewait, superintendent of education for Horry County. Former teachers also will attend the reunion and workshop.

Valinda Littlefield, an assistant professor in history and African American Studies, will discuss the role of Jeanes Teachers in Rosenwald Schools. The Anna T. Jeanes Foundation provided funds to train and hire teachers with special skills, including handcrafts, home industries, and sanitation.

“Jeanes Teachers helped people raise money to build the schools, but they also raised funds for desks, blackboards, and shop and kitchen equipment,” said Littlefield whose specialty is 19th-century African-American education. “It’s amazing when you look at the amount of funding the African-American community contributed—often exceeding Rosenwald’s portion and the state’s. African Americans were interested in education, and this gave them a real schoolhouse.”

Cleveland Seller Jr., director of USC’s African American Studies Program, and others also will speak.

African-American farmers, such as farmers who worked on Freewoods Farm and others across the state, initiated construction of most Rosenwald schools.

“We want to focus on what those farmers did,” said Smalls, who is president of the Freewoods Foundation, which operates Freewoods Farm. “I am thoroughly convinced that farming is the defining experience of the African-American character and culture.”

A working farm, Freewoods Farm, when fully operational, will feature seasonal crops, a wetlands area, and a main street for visitors and schoolchildren to tour.

Tickets for the reception at Freewoods Farm and the supper following the reunion must be purchased in advance. For tickets, call 843-650-9139 or 843-650-2734 by Oct. 1. Freewoods Farm and the African American Studies Program at USC are cosponsors of the program.

09/04