Life journey of Booker Taliaferro Washington

   Booker T Washington 

Booker T Washington was the foremost black educator of the late 19th and early

20th centuries. He also influenced southern racial relations and was a dominant figure in the public affairs of the Black from 1895 until his death in 1915.

         Booker Taliaferro was born a mulatto slave possibly in the year 1856 , near Hale's  Ford in Franklin County,  Virginia, in a ramshackle one-room cabin on a tobacco farm owned by James Burroughs.  It is not known who his white father was,  but he took no responsibility for him. 

           His mother's name was Jane,  who was a farm cook. After the Civil War, the family moved to Malden, West Virginia.  There Booker found employment first as a salt-packer, then as a coal miner (1866-68). In 1872, he entered the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute There he took on the job of a housekeeper to help pay for his board and tution.  Samuel Armstrong,  Principal of the Institute became Washington's mentor.

         

               Later,  when Armstrong was asked to recommend a suitable teacher to take charge of an upcoming school for the Blacks in Tuskegee, he suggested Booker's name. The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute was opened in 1888. The school taught academic subjects but emphasised more on a practical education.  

      

              In September 1895, Washington became a national figure when his speech at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta was widely reported by the by the country's newspaper.  He concluded his

autobiography with an account of several recognitions he had received for his work,  including an honorary degree from Harvard,  and two significant visits to Tuskegee,  one by President William McKinley and another by General Samuel Armstrong. 

                    Booker was married three times and had three children.  His autobiography,  UP FROM SLAVERY,  first published in 1901, is still widely read even today.

            Booker died on November 14 , 1915.