In 1912, Rosenwald made a sudden entry into extensive philanthropy. He announced he would be celebrating his 50th birthday by giving away close to $700,000, about $16 million in current dollars. One of Rosenwald’s considerable donations was $25,000 to Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. Washington purposely set aside part of it to launch a new experiment, which he expected might interest his donor,a $2,100 effort to build new schools in parts of Alabama where little or no education was being offered to rural blacks.
