Newtown (East Elkton) School

The Newtown School, built here in 1921-1922, served African American students during the segregation era. Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co., collaborated with Booker T. Washington in a school-building campaign beginning in 1912. The Rosenwald Fund, incorporated in 1917, helped build more than 5,000 schools and supporting structures for African Americans in the rural South by 1932. The Fund contributed $1,000 toward the Newtown School, while local African Americans donated $872 and Rockingham County gave $2,628. The three-teacher school, the county's last solely for black students, closed in 1965 and is the only remaining Rosenwald-funded school building in the county.