Architectural Agency in Digital Documentation: Realizing Alabama’s Rosenwald Schools

Abstract

Architecture, as a cultural and social construction, realizes both the priorities and oppositions of society: what they’re for, as well as what they’re against. Through close observation and analysis, the architecture of the segregated American South reveals these attitudes. Presented here is the impact of the Julius Rosenwald Schools across the Black Belt region of Alabama, shedding light on the past by analyzing four extant schools, documenting their adaptations over time, and giving agency to current generations to preserve these schools with the aid of digital documentation technology. The Rosenwald Schools embody the resilience and self-determi-nation of African American communities across the South that overcame institutional inequities of Jim Crow to empower future generations.