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The small, one-story, white clapboard building that sits quietly on a hill along State Highway 21 West in Cedar Creek does not, at first glance, seem particularly impressive.
Barely 1,000 square feet in size, with a front-facing gabled roof and Craftsman-inspired details, it’s hardly imposing. But it’s not uncommon for small things to tell big stories, and such is the case with the Hopewell Rosenwald School.
Built more than a century ago 25 miles southeast of Austin, the historic Hopewell Rosenwald School is one of the few remaining examples of a project to provide learning opportunities for African Americans during the Jim Crow era.
Emerging from a friendship between Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and famed African American educator Booker T. Washington, the Rosenwald schools project attempted to fill a gaping hole in the South’s educational landscape. Using Rosenwald’s money and Washington’s expertise and connections, from 1917 to 1932 some 5,000 schools for African Americans were built across the rural South, with about 470 of them being located in East and Central Texas.
For decades the Rosenwald schools were about the only place Texas’ rural African Americans could be taught even the basics of reading and writing. But following the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared school segregation unconstitutional, Rosenwald schools began to be shuttered, and by the end of the last century only a handful of the buildings that had housed them still existed.
And that’s the other story the Hopewell Rosenwald School tells – how a community resolved to hold onto its history, rather than allowing it to be swept away.
Up from Slavery
The tale of the Hopewell Rosenwald School stretches all the way back to shortly after the news of emancipation reached Galveston on June 19, 1865. It was then that the formerly enslaved couple Martin McDonald and Sophia Veal met near the Young Plantation in Bastrop County. After marrying in 1874, they began purchasing land, eventually owning more than 1,100 acres. Through their emphasis on self-sufficiency and community engagement, they were an inspiration for the Cedar Creek community.
After Martin passed away in 1912, Sophia wanted to create something to represent his legacy. So in 1919 she transferred 1.5 acres of land from their estate to develop the Hopewell Church and School for Cedar Creek
The project was invaluable, not just for Sophia but for the surrounding African American community. With additional funding support from the Rosenwald School Building Program, the Hopewell Rosenwald School opened in 1921, and Artelia McDonald Brown, Sophia and Martin’s daughter, became its first teacher.
The school remained open for nearly four decades, using old textbooks, furniture, and other equipment handed down from white schools. Along with most other Rosenwald schools, Hopewell closed its doors in the late 1950s. But the resilience of the school’s students, teachers, and contributors was never truly forgotten. In 2015, a $50,000 grant from Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative was awarded to initiate the Hopewell Rosenwald Restoration Project. In 2022, the school was designated a Texas Historic Landmark, legally protecting it from demolition without the consent of both the state and private owners.
Credit: Hopewell Rosenwald School
Among the crucial figures spearheading the project was now 93-year-old Elroy Williams. Williams inherited the school property along with his late wife, Sophia Williams, a former Hopewell student and Artelia’s daughter. Elroy had attended a Rosenwald school in Clearview, and knew firsthand how historically significant the institutions were.
“We want this school to represent the history of the struggle for education in the South, and so my wife and I set out to save this school and not let the county take it,” Williams says.
“I went to school here through the fifth grade,” he recalled. “Afterward, they shut it down, and we started attending school in Bastrop. It was tough because there wasn’t any air conditioning back then.”
Past to Present
Aside from being a historical site, Williams and the board of directors want the school to play a crucial role in enhancing future generations. They believe that the Hopewell Rosenwald School, which provided education, safety, and community for segregated African Americans a century ago, should provide the same relief for today’s marginalized communities.
“We’re hoping that youth and adult organizations will have meetings here,” Williams says. “Even if they want to pitch horseshoes or have a drink of soda, they’re welcome to come.”
The Hopewell Rosenwald School Project hosted its first Summer Youth Program in 2025. The three-week program taught key STEM, literary, and physical education concepts to students in grades three through six in the Cedar Creek and Shiloh communities.
Shawanda Stewart, William’s niece and a member of the Hopewell Rosenwald School advisory board, helped supervise the program, describing it as a fun experience for everyone. As a result of its success, Stewart would like to expand the program.
“I want us to collaborate with McKinney Roughs and be able to offer additional things like archery and kayaking,” she says. “I also want us to secure more funding so we can hire high schoolers to work during the camp.”
Stewart is the daughter of Martin Brown, another founding member of the renovation project, and her connection to the Hopewell Rosenwald School goes back to her childhood. Though she was born in California, her family moved to Cedar Creek when she was in middle school.
When she attended the Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church growing up, she could see the worn-down school building sitting barely 100 feet away. Although her father explained to her that the building belonged to an old Rosenwald school, she says she didn’t understand its full legacy until she became an adult.
“It has really been within the last couple of years that I have really gotten involved,” she says, “ understanding that if we don’t carry on the tradition, there is significant history that can be lost.”
Credit: Andrew Feiler, from “A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America.”
Giving Life to History
Restoring the Hopewell Rosenwald School hasn’t been an easy venture. With little funding support from the federal and state governments, the work has persisted primarily through grants, donations, partnerships, and community fundraising.
Additionally, spreading awareness and building a coalition of talented and passionate people has been difficult, according to Hopewell Rosenwald School Community Development Advisor David Porter. He emphasized the need to explain to contractors that their approach must be delicate.
“You can’t just go in and start hammering and sawing; you have to adhere to the guidelines of the National Park Service,” he says. “It’s a historic preservation project, not a remodeling.”
A key partner in the restoration process has been American Youthworks, an organization dedicated to helping adolescents and young men who have struggled through high school acquire their degrees and develop career skills through service-learning projects – echoing, as it happens, the educational philosophy of Booker T. Washington.
American Youthworks currently serves as the general contractor for the construction of the restroom and meeting room facilities behind the school’s main building. Following this project, the Hopewell community plans to establish a play area for young children, a basketball court, a small museum, and a pavilion.
Those visiting the Hopewell Rosenwald School today see a place rich in spirit. Photographs of the McDonald family, firsthand accounts detailing the brutality of segregation, and children’s books are scattered along the walls and tables. The wooden desks, floors, and cabinets in the primary instructor area are indicative of the efforts of the various individuals involved in the project, capturing the essence of intergenerational resilience.
The atmosphere is simultaneously reminiscent of the Jim Crow learning environment and welcoming to younger generations, proof that in a small space, a significant story can be told.
Marcus Santillanes is a graduate of Huston-Tillotson University, where he was a W.E.B. Du Bois Honors scholar who majored in environmental justice and participated in HT’s Austin Free Press journalism project. Santillanes wrote a story on “Japan’s Unforgiving Working Culture” as a Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow in 2022.