LBB Presents ONLINE: Andrew Feiler with Lauren Tate Baeza - A Better Life for Their Children

Left Bank Books welcomes award-winning photographer Andrew Feiler, who will discuss his new book, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America, on our Facebook Live Page at 5:30pm CT on May 4. Feiler will be in conversation with the Curator of African Art at High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Lauren Tate Baeza. Join us on our Facebook Live Page and order a copy of A Better Life for Their Children from Left Bank Books to support authors and independent bookstores!

About A Better Life for Their Children

Born to Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and turn it into the world's largest retailer. Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with black communities across the segregated South to build public schools for African American children. This watershed moment in the history of philanthropy--one of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans--drove dramatic improvement in African American educational attainment and fostered the generation who became the leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights movement.

Of the original 4,978 Rosenwald schools built between 1917 and 1937 across fifteen southern and border states, only about 500 survive. While some have been repurposed and a handful remain active schools, many remain unrestored and at risk of collapse. To tell this story visually, Andrew Feiler drove more than twenty-five thousand miles, photographed 105 schools, and interviewed dozens of former students, teachers, preservationists, and community leaders in all fifteen of the program states.

A Better Life for their Children includes eighty-five duotone images that capture interiors and exteriors, schools restored and yet-to-be restored, and portraits of people with unique, compelling connections to these schools. Brief narratives written by Feiler accompany each photograph, telling the stories of Rosenwald schools' connections to the Trail of Tears, the Great Migration, the Tuskegee Airmen, Brown v. Board of Education, embezzlement, murder, and more.

Beyond the photographic documentation, A Better Life for Their Children includes essays from three prominent voices. Congressman John Lewis, who attended a Rosenwald school in Alabama, provides an introduction; preservationist Jeanne Cyriaque has penned a history of the Rosenwald program; and Brent Leggs, director of African American Cultural Heritage at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has written a plea for preservation that serves as an afterword.

"Andrew Feiler's photographs and stories bring us into the heart of the passion for education in black communities: the passion of teachers who taught multiple grades and dozens of students in a single classroom; the passion of parents and neighbors who helped to raise the money to build our schools and then each year continued to reach deep to purchase school supplies; the passion of students like me who craved learning, worked hard, and read as many books as we could put our hands on." --Congressman John Lewis

About the Speakers

Andrew Feiler, a fifth-generation Georgian, is an award-winning photographer whose work has been featured in museums, galleries, and magazines and is in a number of private collections. His photography is focused on the contemporary complexities of the American South. More of his photography can be seen at https://andrewfeiler.com.

Lauren Tate Baeza joined the High Museum of Art in November 2020 as the Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art. Baeza oversees the African art collection of more than one thousand objects, including extraordinary examples of masks and sculpture, exceptionally fine textiles, beadwork, metalwork, and ceramics. The collection’s holdings reflect the continent’s deep, rich history, as well as contemporary innovation.

For more information, email Amber Norris at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

https://www.left-bank.com/event/andrew-feiler-better-life-their-children