Education has long been known to be the strength of the roots in the Garland Community. Those finding their ancestry in the sandy soil of the community are now teachers, businessmen and members of the medical field, with their lineage tracing them back to the education and the struggles found at the Rosenwald school house that found its home next to the churches of the Garland Community.

Julius Rosenwald was the son of German-Jewish immigrants and a highschool dropout, but his philanthropic efforts in the early days of the 1900’s would lead to more than half a million poor, mostly rural, Southern black children having a decent building to get an education, and one of those was the Rosenwald school building in the Garland Community.

Starting with his initial $25,000 grant to Booker T. Washington and what is now Tuskegee University, the Rosenwald Fund would go on to build schools all across the South, including 464 in Texas, that would be the home of education for 57, 330 students.

While providing grants to build the schools, the Rosenwald plan insisted on community participation, including matching funds. Though generally caus-ing great sacrifices, communities with Rosenwald schools were seen as the elite, and those living there would pitch in to the effort with labor and monies. Far and wide local churches would host fund raisers, local farmers would donate crops and sell off their farm animals to help raise the necessary funds. Tax dollars would also become a part of the effort.

The first formal school in the community was established in 1875. Its most noted educator of the early days was Major J. Johnson. Johnson led the district’s efforts to expand, and the school prospered until it was consolidated into Marvin Pynes School in DeKalb, in the building now housed by DeKalb Middle School. That early school was driven by an intense desire to educate the people of the community. Early school documentation declares the aim of the school to be “…to develop boys and girls to be useful men and women, polished in the manners and perquisities for the highest good in the community, the government, and the race. To fit one for complete living.”

Those same documents noted the importance of faith among its students, citing, “We insist on students attending some some Sunday school and church services each Sunday.”

In an article in the Tribune in 1993, Dr. Raynard Kington is quoted as saying, “The school system that was founded here after the Civil War was apparently very well respected in this area…It helped the community make the transition from slavery to basically middle class in a relatively short period of time. It was also unusual that the school was controlled entirely by Blacks. I think that for the time to have had that much control and autonomy helped in the success of the community. I think the focus on education allowed this community to do better economically than a lot of other African American communities did.”

Original documentation of the school’s formation also notes the intense desire of the community to have a school to teach its young people. One section of that documentation, labeled General Facts, reads, “The long cherished desire of the people in this community is about to be realized in establishing a real High School and Industrial Institute. The work was begun several years ago with a most splendid growth and outlook, but for several years now it has been un-noticed and allowed to remain in a state of lethargy. But recently under the present incumbent it has taken on new life and strenuous efforts are being brought to bear to fully supply the long felt need and desire. The school has had a long line of splendid teachers and a glorious history and the future outlook is very propitious.”

One only has to look at the long line of successful people that trace their roots back to those who attended that first school to see that the school’s aim was well focused, and the people of the Garland Community paid close attention then, and still do now, to the words of those who came before them who emphasized the importance of education.