The first two decades of the 20th century breathed a spirit of progressivism into American life. This freshened sense of possibility extended few social and political benefits to Southern African Americans and their impoverished schools. Several Northern influential philanthropists and their foundations initiated and funded multi-year programs in Southern states for the improvement of education for African Americans. Notable among several philanthropic thrusts was the implementation of the vision of Chicago's Julius Rosenwald, to construct schoolhouses for use by the current and subsequent generations of Southern African American children. From 1917-1932, his Rosenwald Fund made available some $4,364,869 that leveraged additional contributions from local African Americans, whites, and public school funds for the construction of 4,977 schoolhouses mainly in the rural South. The Fund provided Texas rural school districts $419,376 toward the construction of 464 schoolhouses for use by African American students in the state. One of these schools was the Columbia Rosenwald School built in 1921 in Gulf-coastal Brazoria County. It served a declining rural population until 1949 when it consolidated with the larger and nearby West Columbia Independent School District. This portrayal of the Columbia Rosenwald School follows Joseph Schwab's insistence that every school must be understood as particular. Although several major studies have examined the Rosenwald Fund's school construction program in general terms, too few studies have focused attention on individual Rosenwald-assisted schools. This account of the Columbia Rosenwald School was constructed mainly from fragmentary documentary evidence scattered in several county and state archives. The resultant narrative offers a view of African American schooling in one small Texas school district and illustrates part of the influence of the Rosenwald Fund in that district. (Contains 1 figure.)