The historic Cairo Rosenwald School in Gallatin, TN

The Rosenwald Schools represent an important chapter in the history of the United States.  Originally built by Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington between 1918 and 1932 as part of a school-building program for African Americans in the rural South, today only about 10 percent of the over 5,300 buildings constructed remain standing, and many are in serious disrepair.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation named Rosenwald schools to its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2002. – Tennessee Preservation Trust’s Cairo Rosenwald School Restoration Project

About Rosenwald Schools

Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company

From the 1910s into the early 1930s, more that 5300 school buildings were constructed in African American communities throughout 15 southern states. Seed money came from Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Black communities put up cash, and local school boards agreed to operate the facilities.

The Cairo Rosenwald School in Gallatin was one of the 354 Rosewald Schools built in Tennessee. There are only about thirty known Tennessee Rosenwald schools still standing. In 2000 the National Trust placed these schools on the list of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The Cairo Rosenwald School was renovated with funding provided by the Rosenwald Initiative sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation which seeks to help preserve these beacons of African American education.

Warfield School built in 1922 in Montgomery County was a Rosenwald School. The school building now serves as The South Guthrie Community Center.

Photo Gallery

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* Images of the Cairo Rosenwald School are Courtesy of the Tennessee Historic Preservation Trust.

Those words summed up the state of the city, City Council, and the Downtown District Partnership regarding the now infamous “blight” ordinance.

The Clarksville Property Rights Coalition met tonight at Austin Peay State University to review the status of a redevelopment ordinance put on hold by Mayor Johnny Piper when it was found to be in violation of state law.

Originally, the Downtown District Partnership had scheduled an informational meeting to explain what were termed “misconceptions” about the ordinance, which declares two square miles and 1823 properties in downtown Clarksville, with the solitary exception of Austin Peay State University, were declared blighted as part of an ambiguous redevelopment plan.

The DDP had suggested that the property in that area were “misinformed” about this legislation. As it turns out, the DDP “failed to use due diligence” and violated state law.

The mayor’s findings and the cancelled meeting brought satisfaction to the citizen’s group who felt their concerns about the ordinance have been substantiated.

The mayor said Wednesday he would seek amendments to the ordinance, but the CPRC and City Councilor Mark Harris, and other community leaders are called for a repeal of the entire measure, citing a “broken trust” between residents and the DDP.

Harris (at left) supported repeal of the ordinance in its entirety. He added that “at least ten” City Council members were supporting the mayor in terms of amendments to the ordinance.

Harris said he was ” shocked at the lack of support from fellow Council members, knowing how much I emphasized the problem that affects the residents in my ward.” He said Jim Doyle is the only other Council member to fully support rescinding the ordinance.

CPRC organizer Debbie Hunt asked that anyone who wants to help should:

• Sign the survey or canvass card to express opposition to the Plan.
• Volunteer to help the Coalition collect signatures of other property owners on the survey/canvass cards
• And of course, join the coalition. She’s collecting email addresses. Anyone interested can join the coalition. It is not limited to residents in the affected area. Residents who live outside that area can certainly be a part of their efforts.

Nashville Attorney John Summers and Tennessee Preservation Trust Executive Director Dan Brown joined Clarksville NAACP President Jimmie Garland in addressing the group, reviewing the ordinance, and explaining the most recent action by Mayor Piper to put the ordinance under a microscope. On Wednesday, Piper cancelled a city-sponsored meeting at APSU intended to “clarify misconceptions” about the ordinance, but a fact-finding trip to Knoxville and a review of the process required to create and implement such an ordinance were found to be lacking “due diligence” and was possibly “in violation of state law” concerning notification of residents in the districts to be affected.

John Summers speaking for the CPRC

Ordinance 73-2005-07 was passed with little fanfare by the Clarksville City Council in November, but as its details emerged, it drew the ire of some 1800 property owners whose downtown homes and business fell under a blanket designation of “blighted.” Grassroots meeting on Dec. 14 at the HOPE Center on Legion Street and on Dec. 17 at the Historic L&N Train Station drew overflow crowds and united people of all ages, economic status and ethnic backgrounds in a fight for the secure ownership of their homes and property.

The faces of citizen concern :

Human Relations Commissioner George Forth

Dan Brown, Executive Director, Tennessee Preservation Trust

County Commissioner Mark Kelly

However, Mayor Johnny Piper has denied a request by the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition for equal time to air their view of the “blight bill” during a hearing to be held at Austin Peay State University’s Clement Auditorium Thursday at 6 p.m.

Atty. John Summers requested a time equal to the that of the city’s presenters to offer the concerns of the affected residents. Since the Downtown District Partnership is presenting a 15-minute program, that would have given property owners their own 15-minute voice on the issue before the question and answer session begins.

Ordinance 73-2005-06, passed in November, 2007, designates two square miles and 1800 homes and businesses in downtown Clarksville as “blighted” and potentially subject to eminent domain as the Downtown District Partnership’s Clarksville Redevelopment Plan and Land Use Master Plan are implemented over the next several years.

The ordinance includes a provision for the taking of property by eminent domain for transfer to developers (clearly stated in the ordinance), and includes an assemblage clause that would allow property takings for the purpose of “assembling” a land parcel package for a specific project, though unlike most redevelopment packages, this ordinance did not include any specific projects. The only land exempt from the blighted designation is Austin Peay State University, where the Thursday hearing will be held. The city says the plan allows it to create a tax-incentive zone to spur development in underused areas.

John Summers, a Nashville Attorney representing the CPRC, the Tennessee Preservation Trust and the Clarksville NAACP, asked for equal time to air the views and concerns of the residents affected by this ordinance. He was denied. In a communique, Mayor Piper indicated that to allow equal time would defeat the purpose of the meeting, which he described as an opportunity for the city to present and explain the plan.

The Downtown District Partnership will offer a fifteen minute presentation on the plan before taking questions and answers. Summers said the time-limited Q&A is a “well used strategy” that keeps the opposing voices from getting their message out. Rather than allow citizens to voice their concerns in a unified presentation, a Q&A session will field those questions in short bursts, one at a time.

Two standing-room-only meetings on this issue were held in December, one at the HOPE Center on Legion Street and the other several days later at the Train Station. Both meetings were attended by overflow crowds representing a cross section of Clarksville citizens: rich, poor, black, white, Hispanic, old, young, working, retired … the unifying factor was anger over the finer points of a law they feel was “slipped” past them and resentment over the City administrators apparent unresponsiveness to their concerns. A majority of officials and council members attended neither citizen-organized program on this issue.

All words used Friday evening to describe the Clarksville Center Redevelopment Plan that deems 1800 parcels of lands and two square miles of the city as “blighted,” a move that would allow the city to take property designated as blighted and “redevelop” it to its maximum potential. Read “profit.”

Terry McMoore of the Urban Resource Center sponsored a community meeting at the HOPE Center on Legion Street to present a panel of speakers on this issue and to field questions from a worried public.

One phrase in the ordinance that concerned panelists and residents alike reads as follows:

“…the Plan for the project area will afford maximum opportunity consistent with the sound needs of the locality as a whole, for redevelopment of the area by private enterprise.” [Ordinance 73-2005-06, Section 7]

This meeting is one of a number of citizen- and community-sponsored events scheduled to address the concerns of proposed legislation that designated the entire downtown area — including the multi-million dollar courthouse, the new FM bank building, and businesses and homes in the district except property held by Austin Peay State University. The endorsement by the City Council followed a “revitalization” program in which citizens of the Red River and Brandon Hills area were invited to a series of planning sessions on the betterment of their community. Not long after the hype of “community betterment” project came the issuance of what Clarksville homeowners are calling “the blight deal.”

The panelists for this program, which aired to a full house of fifty people, included Nashville Atty. John Summers who currently chairs the Tennessee Historic Preservation Coalition, Dan Brown, Executive Director of the Tennessee Preservation Trust, Civil Rights activist and advocate Jimmie Garland Sr. (at left) who is currently serving as President of the Clarksville branch of the NAACP, and author and Human Relations Commissioner David Shelton. Ward 6 Councilor Marc Harris was scheduled to be on this panel but failed to appear.

“This is not just a development issue, this is a social justice issue,” Brown said, calling the plan, bold, audacious, over the top, the largest [redevelopment plan] of its kind in the nation.” The plan can be included on a top ten list of most endangering projects in the United States.

“There is no plan to it. It is ‘enabling’ legislation that allows developers to come into a community and take property.” Brown said the scope of the project is “unbelievable.”

John Summers (at right) displayed maps of Nashville Redevelopment projects, citing seven individualized development projects targeting specific issues in specific neighborhoods, each with it own issues and objectives, couched in long-range planning, unlike Clarksville’s move to blanket the entire center of the center under the collective label of “blight.”

“This kind of action is unprecedented; no other city in all of Tennessee — not Memphis, not Nashville, not Chattanooga or Jackson — has declared all of a downtown district as part of a single redevelopment. [Clarksville] declared 1800 parcels as blighted irregardless of their actual condition.” — John Summers

Summers and the panel agreed the only course of action to get this plan repealed, and said it would take a dedicated effort by residents to make that happen. He said the community must come together with a consensus. He said that while he hopes the plan will be repealed “because it is the right thing to do,” this precedent-setting legislation should be “fought on every level.” He has been in touch with a historic preservation legal trust fund. “This plan if allowed to manifest itself has national implications.”

Garland noted that a high percentage of residents in the area are middle and low income families, and many are people of color. Garland sees the plan as a way for the city to shift the balance of the community and move the poor out of the downtown corridor. Garland is taking a copy of the the ordinance (73-2005-06) to the state NAACP for review and discussion of potential action.

“If you trust your city council in this matter, go home and sleep well.” With those words came a rueful and wry laughter from the audience.

“This law will let developers build the convenience stores people say they need, and build the playgrounds, but there won’t be anyone living there to use them.” Not one presenter or member of the audience spoke in favor of this legislation, and many questioned the absence of any city officials.

Residents collectively voiced concern that the designation of blight will either diminish the value of their property and/or hinder their ability to sell property since anything in that area would be vulnerable to eminent domain takings for redevelopment.

It doesn’t matter if your property is not run down, if you live in a nice home…if you property is attached to a parcel that is needed to complete some other building package, it can and would be vulnerable to a taking. Summers said.

If Clarksville’s administrative and political leadership think the issue will die out, they need a reality check. The homeowners were not just worried, they were fighting mad. And they are organizing.

On Monday at 6 p.m. at the Train Station downtown, the Clarksville Property Rights Association will stage another meeting — complete with petitions — extending the face and the voice of the people affected by this designation.

These images reflect “the face of concern” at Friday’s meeting:

Editor’s Note: Author/Editor Christine Anne Piesyk facilitated the event at the request of the sponsor, the Urban Resource Center. Photos by Bill Larson