Booker T. Washington
Born a slave in 1956, Booker T. Washington was a renowned educator and author and a recognized leader of many of the nation’s African-American citizens in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Washington received his education at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, and the Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. He returned to Hampton to teach. The founders of the new normal school for freemen in Tuskegee, Alabama, pegged him to lead their institution in 1881. Washington led the school, which became known as the Tuskegee Institute, until his death in 1915.
Advocating for the advancement of his race, Washington argued that the path to success was found through economic independence and the vocational education of the many. Tuskegee provided an academic education, particularly for teachers, but also offered young black men practical training in skills such as carpentry and masonry. Washington believed that through work, African Americans would gain acceptance by white Americans and then obtain the full rights of citizenship.
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