A Better Life For Their Children Photo Exhibit Opens Aug. 1

The Coastal Discovery Museum presents the photography exhibition, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America, on view August 1–November 1, 2026.

The public is invited to a talk and reception with photographer and author Andrew Feiler on September 17. Talk at at 5 pm, with reception to follow. Admission to the museum is free.

A remarkable collaboration
The Rosenwald Schools program was a partnership between Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Booker T. Washington, prominent African American educator, leader, and founder of the Tuskegee Institute. Between 1912 and 1937, this historic partnership helped fund the construction of nearly 5,000 schools for Black children in the segregated South and border states.

A Better Life for Their Children features photographs and narratives by Feiler, whose work documents surviving Rosenwald school buildings and tells the stories of people connected to them.