Jewish-American Hall of Fame honors Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington

No more than one hundred 3.5-inch bonded bronze medals will be hand made by former U.S. Mint engraver Jim Licaretz and hand-patinated by medalist Eugene Daub. Daub won the American Medal of the Year Award in 2024, and Licaretz won the Award in 2023.

Mel Wacks, Director of the Jewish-American Hall of Fame, says that “There is probably no person other than Rosenwald – who has been called the most important philanthropist you never heard of – who is more deserving of this honor.”

Julius Rosenwald

Julius Rosenwald was born in 1862 just a few blocks from Abraham Lincoln’s residence in Springfield, Illinois. By his sixteenth year, Rosenwald was apprenticed by his parents to his uncles in New York City to learn the clothing trades, and together with his younger brother, Rosenwald started a clothing manufacturing company. In 1895, he became a part owner of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and in 1908 Rosenwald was named president. In 1924, Rosenwald resigned the presidency, but remained as chairman; his goal was to devote more time to philanthropy.

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was born a slave on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. Between the ages of ten and twelve, he worked in a coal mine, while attending school. At the age sixteen, Booker T. Washington entered Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, where his belief was reinforced in an educational system that emphasized practical skills and self-help.

In 1880, a bill that included a yearly appropriation of $2,000 was passed by the Alabama State Legislature to establish a school for Blacks in Macon County. Washington was named as principal. By Tuskegee’s 25th anniversary, Washington had transformed an idea into a 2,000-acre, eighty-three building campus that, combined with such personal property as equipment, live stock and stock in trade, was valued at $831,895. Tuskegee’s endowment fund was $1,275,644 and training in thirty-seven industries was available for the more than 1,500 students enrolled that year.

Reverse of the medal

Booker T. Washington wrote 40 books, including an autobiography titled “Up From Slavery” (1901) – which thanks to happenstance was read in 1910 by Julius Rosenwald. A friendship sparked, resulting in the building of nearly 5,000 schoolhouses in Black communities across the South, where existing facilities, in Washington’s words, were “as bad as stables” – if there were schools at all. Rosenwald contributed up to half of the cost (totaling about 4.4 million dollars – equivalent to 78 million dollars today), and the community raised the balance. With a scope that would be deemed unattainable today, this audacious scheme is credited by present-day economists with having created “a new Black middle class in the South.” Graduates have included civil rights activists John Lewis and Maya Angelou.

Find out more about the Rosenwald Schools in this video: