Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

Long-Distance Runner!, of the Civil Rights Movement \\ 139
ored people to help create a better understanding between the white and black
races." 47
It was Paul Sachs who brought the National Urban League to the attention of
his close friend Rosenwald, a German Jew who was in the process of becoming the
most important individual benefactor of Blacks in the United States. 48 Privately,
Rosenwald used to tell his family that his interest in Blacks stemmed from his
childhood in Springfield, Illinois, where he was deeply affected by the spirit of
the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Publicly, he explained it this way:
"Whether it is because I belong to a people who have known centuries of persecution,
or whether it is because naturally I am inclined to sympathize with the
oppressed, I have always felt keenly for the colored race." His "sympathies," he
said, had "remained more or less dormant" until he read a biography of William
H. Baldwin, the late husband of Ruth Standish Baldwin, who had been president
of the Long Island Rail Road, chairman of the board of Tuskegee, and a close
friend and trusted adviser of Booker T. Washington. Rosenwald was particularly
impressed by Baldwin's contention that one of the major challenges of the day was
finding the means for Blacks and whites to live together "with decency and forbearance."
As Rosenwald observed, "Nothing will so test the sincerity of our religion,
our moral obligation, or even our common self respect, as will the exigencies
of this, which is among the greatest of all our problems." Rosenwald was
impressed, too, when he read Washington's autobiography, Up from Slavery. The
two first met in 1911 and quickly struck up a warm friendship. The next year,
Rosenwald joined the board at Tuskegee, where he continued to serve until his
death.49
Thanks in significant measure to Washington's influence, Rosenwald made
Black education and social welfare his major philanthropic commitment.
Through the Julius Rosenwald Fund, over a thirty-year period, he spent more
than $20 million to build rural schoolhouses, train teachers, improve Black colleges
and universities, develop health services for Blacks, advance race relations,
and provide fellowships to enable talented Black students and scholars to complete
their schooling and advance their careers. His purpose in these benefactions,
he said, was to promote "better American citizenship"; uplifting Blacks, he felt,
would benefit whites as well. 50
In the 1910s, Rosenwald's annual gifts of $2,000 made him the National
Urban League's second largest contributor. (John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who gave an
average gift of $3,000, was the largest. Together, their gifts sometimes accounted
for as much as a third of the League's annual budget.) 51 Along with the personal
benefactions came a direct link to the management of the League's affairs in
the 1920s, as Rosenwald's wife, Augusta Nusbaum Rosenwald, was elected to the
board in 1920; following her death in 1929, their daughter, Adele Rosenwald
Levy, took her seat.
While there is no evidence that Rosenwald used those ties explicitly to
influence the direction of the Urban League, the presence on the board of close