Julius Rosenwald was part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company in the early 1900s. His motto was “Give while you live.” He started giving to mostly Jewish causes when he was young, but one man changed that. Rosenwald meet Booker T. Washington. A former slave, Booker T. Washington believed that the only way for African Americans to achieve equality was to first become self-reliant, productive members of society as laborers.  Washington’s idea of self-reliance appealed to Rosenwald. On his fiftieth birthday, Rosenwald gave matching grants to many groups, including a small amount to Washington to help build elementary schools for blacks in the South. He soon discovered the inequities in education faced by blacks in the South. He began giving more more with one stipulation: “each community had to contribute to the building of the school.” The book details how communities raised money, the blueprints for some schools, the prominent African Americans who benefited from the schools and more.  More than 600,000 African American children attended Rosenwald schools. An excellent account of a little known segment of history.