Whitesville Elementary School

This school was built in 1925 to serve the children of Whitesville, an African American community that had developed alongside Parksley in the 1880s. A contribution of $900 came from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, created in 1917 after Rosenwald (president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co.) and Booker T. Washington (founding principal of Tuskegee Institute) had partnered in a school-building campaign. Rosenwald funding helped construct about 5,000 schools for Black students across the South by leveraging local spending. The Whitesville school, built with $1,700 from the Black community and $4,150 in public funds, closed in 1964. Accomack County Public Schools were not fully desegregated until 1970.

Department of Historic Resources, 2025