Booker T Washington
Booker T Washington National Monument (National Park Service)
On April 5, 1856, a child who later called himself Booker T. Washington, was born in slavery on this 207-acre tobacco farm. The realities of life as a slave in piedmont Virginia, the quest by African Americans for education and equality, and the post-war struggle over political participation all shaped the options and choices of Booker T. Washington. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881 and later became an important and controversial leader of his race at a time when increasing racism in the United States made it necessary for African Americans to adjust themselves to a new era of legalized oppression. Visitors are invited to step back in time and experience firsthand the life and landscape of people who lived in an era when slavery was part of the fabric of American life. ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington National Monument Home Page
"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race." ... "The Great Educator" describes in words and pictures Washington's evolution from slave to student, educator to national leader. ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington Biography
Booker T. Washington recalled his childhood in his autobiography, Up From Slavery . He was born in 1856 on the Burroughs tobacco farm which, despite its small size, he always referred to as a "plantation." His mother was a cook, his father a white man from a nearby farm. "The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin," he wrote, "were not very different from those of other slaves." He went to school in Franklin County - not as a student, but to carry books for one of James Burroughs's daughters. It was illegal to educate slaves. "I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study would be about the same as getting into paradise," he wrote. In April 1865 the Emancipation Proclamation was read to joyful slaves in front of the Burroughs home. Booker's family soon left to join his stepfather in Malden, West Virginia. The young boy took a job in a salt mine that began at 4 a.m. so he could attend school later in the d ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington NM Curriculum Based Education Programs
Students explore the Southern plight from the 1880s through the turn of the 20th-century as African Americans struggled, fought, and even died for the right to vote. Students analyze the politics and commercial industries of the South, examine the speeches and papers of Washington and other leaders of the era, and debate the economic and social philosophy of Booker T. Washington. While analyzing, describing, and discussing the climate of the post-Reconstruction South, students discover that drive and determination can change a nation. ... [Read More]
African American Odyssey: The Booker T. Washington Era (Part 1)
Included in an award-winning exhibit at the Paris Exposition, thisphotograph--one of 500--was part of the evidence collected under thedirection of W. E. B. DuBois to illustrate the condition, education, andliterature of African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, onlythirty-five years after the abolition of slavery. In his own descriptionof the exhibit, DuBois noted that by 1900 African Americans owned onemillion acres of land and paid taxes on twelve million dollars worth ofproperty. In addition to photographs about black-owned businesses likethis one in Georgia, the exhibit included a number of images related tosuccessful black businesses elsewhere. The related display in the foyerof the Library's John Adams Building features additional photographs ofblack businesses assembled for the Paris Exposition. ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington--Overview: Legends of Tuskegee
Booker Taliaferro Washington rose from slavery to a position of power and influence. A realist and a man of action, he became one of the most important African-American leaders of his time. He was committed to improving the lives of African-Americans after the Civil War. Washington advocated economic independence through self-help, hard work, and a practical education. His drive and vision built Tuskegee into a major African-American presence and place of learning. ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington NM Visitor Center Exhibit
Booker T. Washington saw education as the true emancipator for himself and others. He rose from slavery and a childhood of manual labor to become a leading educator of African Americans at the end of the 19th century. As the first principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he built an educational program that emphasized agricultural and industrial training. His program reflected an understanding of the racism, violence, intimidation, and lack of economic opportunities that most African Americans faced in the South during this time. He believed that when African Americans proved themselves economically, civil rights for blacks would naturally follow. From 1895 to 1915, he was the most powerful and influential African American in the United States. ... [Read More]
Progress of a People: Booker T. Washington
A handsome man and a forceful speaker, Washington was skilled at politics. Powerful and influential in both the black and white communities, Washington was a confidential advisor to presidents. For years, presidential political appointments of African-Americans were cleared through him. He was funded by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, dined at the White House with Theodore Roosevelt and family, and was the guest of the Queen of England at Windsor Castle. ... For decades, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was the major African-American spokesman in the eyes of white America. Born a slave in Virginia, Washington was educated at Hampton Institute, Norfolk, Virginia. He began to work at the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and built it into a center of learning and industrial and agricultural training. ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington: White House Dream Team
Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia in 1856. He was seven years old when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves. He was too poor to go to school, so he worked at a salt furnace and a coal mine to support his family, but Booker's dream was to get an education. At age 16 he traveled 500 miles, often by walking, to enroll at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. He arrived with only 50 cents in his pocket. The institute gave him a job as a janitor to pay for school, and he later became a teacher. ... [Read More]
Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and the Tuskegee Airmen: LEGENDS OF TUSKEGEE
CLICK to enter exhibit ... Last Modified: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 ... National Park Service Museum Management Program ... [Read More]
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