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Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Rocky Mount, Virginia in 1856. He attended Hampton Institute and, in June of 1881, he was selected as principal of Tuskegee Normal Institute. At the time, the institute consisted of only a run-down church, a small shanty and thirty-one enrolled students. Using his leadership skills, Washington began renovations on what he said was to be an industrial training school rather than a liberal arts college. It would give Blacks a practical education. His self-help program allowed the students of Tuskegee to work to pay their way and run to the school. Diligent student labor and generous northern donations helped to expand the institute. The successful farmers, carpenters and bricklayers who were graduating from Tuskegee helped to spread Washington’s name throughout the South.
In 1895, Washington became the first Negro leader to be extended an invitation to make a speech in the Deep South. In his speech at the Atlanta Exposition, Washington proposed that “in all things that are social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential for mutual progress.” This speech, known as the “Atlanta Compromise,” gave Washington overnight acclaim and was praised by the nation’s press as the “greatest utterance of an American Negro.”
Washington did much to institutionalize the North, as well. He helped set up the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation for Negro rural schools in 1907. He contributed to the establishment of the Phelp-Stokes Fund and the Carnegie Foundation in 1911. He also participated in developing the Rosewald Fund idea in 1913.
Booker T. Washington died of a fatal heart attack on November 4, 1915. He will always be remembered and honored, however, for his key role in the development of the Tuskegee Institute.
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