For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 06/16/2016
NRHP Listing Date 08/15/2016
NRHP Reference Number 16000539
Courtland School in the town of Courtland, the Southampton County seat, served African American students from around 1928, the year of the school’s construction, through 1963, when it closed. The Julius Rosenwald Fund provided money and architectural plans to support the school’s construction. Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck and Company, collaborated with Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute to establish the fund to improve educational access for African Americans in segregated communities throughout the South. In Virginia, 367 Rosenwald schools in 79 localities arose between 1917 and 1932, the life span of the fund. Similar to the Courtland School, 50 percent of Virginia’s Rosenwalds were two-teacher type schools built from plans provided by the Rosenwald fund.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: October 1, 2021