US senators urge Biden to create national monument to honor Springfield philanthropist

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has authored a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to employ his authority under the Antiquities Act to create a national monument in honor of Springfield native and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald.

As one of its owners, Rosenwald made Sears, Roebuck and Company a retail powerhouse, but during the Jim Crow era, he partnered with Booker T. Washington and nearly 5,000 Black communities in the South to build schools across 15 states for children without educational opportunities.

A total of 5,357 "Rosenwald Schools" educated some 600,000 Black Americans in the South, including alumni Congressman John Lewis, Medgar Evers and Maya Angelou.

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U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois., Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, Tim Kaine, D-Virginia and Mark Warner, D-Virginia, also signed the letter.

The National Park Service's Special Resource Study on Rosenwald is scheduled to wrap up later this year.

Rosenwald's boyhood home on Eighth Street is being considered for the national monument. It serves as the headquarters for the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, which consists of several residences in Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield neighborhood.

Rosenwald, who was born in 1862 to German Jewish immigrants, lived in a house on Seventh Street until his family moved to the Eighth Street home in 1869.

Other sites in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago and in Maryland also are being considered for the national monument.

Rosenwald served on the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. He was also the principal founder and backer for the Museum of Science and Industry.

“Julius Rosenwald’s philanthropy changed the course of African American education in the South and had significant impacts on our society. We support elevating the story, people, and schools that facilitated that change through the creation of a national monument,” the senators wrote.

“A national monument would be of national historical significance and the first to commemorate the life and legacy of a Jewish American. It also would acknowledge the impact of Rosenwald Schools in the segregated South and address early Black-Jewish partnerships and the role of philanthropy in the United States.  Importantly, a national monument also would pay tribute to the value of education as an equalizing force. As Julius Rosenwald so aptly stated, ‘I do not see how America can go forward if part of its people are left behind,’” wrote the senators.

The Antiquities Act gives the president the authority by proclamation to create national monuments from federal lands. The act has been used more than 100 times.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: President Biden urged to honor Springfield's Julius Rosenwald