One of the Saturday Harvest Days events will be at 1 p.m. when state Representative Michael Wray will pay tribute to the late state Senator Edward Jones as part of the program honoring the legacy of the Allen Grove Rosenwald School, which is on the grounds of the 4-H center.
Jones lent his support to the maintenance and restoration of the Allen Grove Rosenwald School. The school will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition, tributes will be paid to long time educators, the late Frankie Fenner Young and the late Barbara Bell Jones. The Allen Grove Rosenwald School is one of several built in Halifax County by Cary Pittman, a prominent black farmer and building contractor. Several descendents of Pittman will be part of the program. The Allen Grove School as well as other Rosenwald Schools that remain intact in Halifax County and throughout the south, serve as landmarks in the history of African-American education.
Julius Rosenwald, a philanthropist and the president of Sears Roebuck and Company, established the Rosenwald Fund in 1917 to improve the quality of public education for African- American children in the rural South.
To encourage collaboration at the local level, the Rosenwald School Program required that local communities raise matching funds for school construction projects. The event is open to the public. Meanwhile, Harvest Days begins Friday at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. that day and will reopen Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Harvest Days events include food, agricultural demonstrations and a horse show.
Entertainment includes the Eyes of Emiline, Kim Terpening and Nine Pound Hammers and an Elvis impersonator.
Harvest Days started in 1992 as a partnership with the Roanoke River Antique Engine & Tractor Club, Halifax County Cooperative Extension and Halifax County Tourism as a way to spotlight the importance of agriculture and its agricultural heritage in Halifax County.
On Friday, local school districts will be bringing their fourth grade classes out to the event to learn many interesting things.
