The Pursuit of Education

The Witherspoon Lodge, temporary classroom, and attending students,1923.

Funding 

Recognizing that Mount Dora needed a permanent school for its Black schoolchildren, an enterprising churchwoman, Mamie Lee Gilbert, joined with other parents to raise money to build a school.

In addition to funds donated by the community, a substantial contribution came from the retired Mount Dora Presbyterian minister, Rev. Duncan C. Milner, 1841-1928. A committed foe of racial discrimination, Milner was a Civil War veteran who still carried wounds from the Battle of Chickamauga.  

In the early part of the century, Booker T. Washington befriended the Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, Chicago, (1862-1932), who was President of Sears Roebuck, and made him aware of the deplorable conditions of Black schools in the south.

Rosenwald established a foundation to help build new ones, and eventually contributed seed-money for the construction of over 5000 schools in eleven southern states.

Mamie Lee Gilbert was instrumental in raising the matching funds needed to qualify  for a  Rosenwald seed-money grant.

 At center Mamie Lee Gilbert receives an award from Cauly O. Lott (right), who served for many years as Principal of Milner-Rosenwald Academy.

       Julius Rosenwald.

Success

  Milner-Rosenwald Academy built in 1926

The new, state-of-the-art, school was built according to strict standards for space, lighting, play area, length of school year, textbooks, and a sliding-door arrangement to create a community room for PTA meetings.

It became a center of community life and a source of pride to all who benefited from it.

An early graduating class posed in front

of the Milner-Rosenwald Academy.

The Milner- Rosenwald Academy Boy Scouts.

 Cauly O. Lott congratulates an honor student.

The school's many graduates have gone on to become, among other things, successful artists, lawyers, writers, and teachers.

They still cherish fond memories of their schooldays, and continue to honor those who made it possible.

Milner-Rosenwald Academy, is now a Florida State Historic Site.

It is located at 1560 Highland Street in Mount Dora, Florida. 

Witherspoon Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons,
 No. 111, Prince Hall Affiliate
 
The Witherspoon Lodge was founded in 1898 in Mount Dora and is one of the oldest still active African-American Masonic Lodges in Florida.

In 1902 its members purchased the two-story, frame building at 1470 Clayton Street and Masonic Lodge meetings have been held there to this day. In the early 1920s the members made the first floor of the building available as a classroom for the Black children of Mount Dora. An earlier school had burned down. 
 

In 2002, the Northeast Black History Committee, Mount Dora, Inc. obtained a Florida Historic Marker to honor the 100-year-old landmark.

     LINKS to other important Black History websites:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flcfaahg/  Orlando Chapter. Useful for tracing ancestry

Mount Dora Black History, Mount Dora Florida, Lake County Florida, Central Florida endowment for Black Heritage and History. Mount Dora Historical Society. est. 1978

Northeast Black History Committee, Mount Dora, FL, Inc.

 Students admire their art work as participants in the Mount Dora Arts Festival. 

Marietta Harvey, alumni of Witherspoon Lodge and Milner-Rosenwald Academy, plays her father's guitar.

Lavond Clayton.

Ms. Clayton lives on Mount Dora's Jackson Avenue, which was named after her father, a friend of J. P. Donnelly.

She is shown in front of the Milner-Rosenwald Academy in 2004, in an Orlando Lake Sentinel newspaper story

Above: Ruthie Watson under whose leadership the Northeast Black History Committee, Mount Dora, Inc. obtained Florida State Historic Markers for the Milner-Rosenwald Academy and the Witherspoon Lodge.

A teacher at the Milner-Rosenwald Academy, she was one of the first African-Americans to begin teaching at the integrated Roseborough Elementary School in 1971

Above: Brenda Lott Grey, also a member of the Committee. She is the daughter of Cauly O. Lott. Most of the historic photos in this webpage are from her collection.

Above: Sally Luther, Secretary of the Northeast Black History Committee, Mount Dora, Inc. shown in front of the restored Withersoon Lodge

Alumni and community leaders.

Left, the grandson of Rev. Milner with his wife and daughter and Ruthie A. Watson, President of the Northeast Black History Committee, Mount Dora, Inc.

   Barbara Pope and her colleague served refreshments. 

They said we couldn’t have a black president
Not ever then not never now and definitely not in the present
But the outcome proved them wrong
Cuz our current president is a black man
So yes, we can!
They said we weren’t ready for our children of every color and creed
To walk hand in hand, under one nation we all can stand
Yes, we can!
Freedom was granted with the Emancipation Proclamation
Still they did not reward us with our gratuities of gratification.
A mule and three quarters of land.
To see us come up, they could not stand
But we did it anyways, so yes we can!
They thought they took away our dream
When they assassinated Martin Luther King.
But his dream was more than a vision in the subconscious sleep state
It foretold a prophesy with no mistake
You see, Martin’s speech was given in 1964
And forty-five years to the day Barack Obama was elected the 44th president
So when they said we couldn’t and we wouldn’t
They didn’t understand
That a man who had a dream and a man who dreamed of change
Could rearrange the thoughts of a nation to finally say
Yes we can!

Books on Black History

of

Mount Dora

'Mount Dorans - African-American History Notes of a Florida Town'

by Vivian W. Owens,

copyright 2000

 The picture is of Nancy Page, who escaped slavery three times, arrived in Mount Dora in the 1870s, and became a property-owner and successful business woman.

Vivian Owens attended Milner-Rosenwald, and went on to college and graduate school. She is an educator in the Lake County Schools.

'The Mount Dorans'  is available for sale in the Mount Dora Historical Society Museum

or visit

Eschar Publications website at:

www.escharpublications.com

 "Schooldays at Milner-Rosenwald" was published in 2008 by the Northeast Black History Committee, Mount Dora, Inc.

It tells the story of the school in a collection of historic photos.

Copies are available for $5 at the Mount Dora Historical Society Museum.

Call 352-383-0006

Or online at Eschar Publications website

www.escharpublications.com