‘Rosenwald’ tells a powerful story about a civil rights legend (A-)

Exquisitely crafted profiles make for terrific documentaries, which is what we have with Rosenwald.

It's the story of Julius Rosenwald, who never finished high school but went on to become the president of Sears. Rosenwald was, in essence, two people: A highly successful businessman, laser-focused on the bottom line, and a Jewish philanthropist who made a difference in the lives of more than 600,000 black children.

Directed by Aviva Kempner, who gave us the fabulous documentary, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, about a Jewish baseball great, Rosenwald stands tall as a moving, inspirational biography. Influenced by Booker T. Washington, Rosenwald helped build more than 5,300 schools in the Jim Crow South during the early 20^th century.

Kempner puts on camera so many influential black leaders — Maya Angelou, Julian Bond, Rep. John Lewis (who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) and journalists Clarence Page and Eugene Robinson — who share illuminating stories about why and how Rosenwald schools uplifted their own lives or those of their relatives.

As Bond explains so movingly, rural black schools prior to the efforts made by Washington and Rosenwald were run-down buildings housing teachers who themselves were poorly educated. The film notes that from 1915 to 1932, more than 660,000 Southern black children benefited from Rosenwald schools.

"Separate but equal" education lingered for years as a racist myth, which the film ably demonstrates. And while the Rosenwald program helped improve black schools, even giving them a signature architectural look, they continued to operate as segregated institutions. Before he died in 1932, Rosenwald gave away $62 million, according to the film.

The last Rosenwald school was built in 1933, well before the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, and of course, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that together helped vanquish Jim Crow segregation in the American South.

Civil rights activist Julian Bond, who died last month, defines the legacy of Julius Rosenwald and thus the significance of Kempner's film as well as anyone:

"It's a wonderful story of cooperation between this philanthropist who did not have to care about black people but who did and who expended his considerable wealth in insuring that they got their fair shake in America."