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Dr. Booker Taliafe
o Washington
Founder and First President of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now
Tuskegee University)
Term in Of�ce: XXXXXXXXXX
Booker T. Washington
Born April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia, Booker Taliafe
o was the son of an
unknown White man and Jane, an enslaved cook of James Bu
oughs, a small planter.
Jane named her son Booker Taliafe
o but later dropped the second name. Booke
gave himself the surname "Washington" when he �rst enrolled in school. Sometime
after Booker's birth, his mother was ma
ied to Washington Ferguson, a slave. A
daughter, Amanda, was born to this ma
iage. James, Booker's younger half-
other,
was adopted. Booker's elder
other, John, was also the son of a White man.
Booker spent his �rst nine years as a slave on the Bu
oughs farm. In 1865, his
mother took her children to Malden, West Virginia, to join her husband, who had
gone there earlier and found work in the salt mines. At age nine, Booker was put to
work packing salt. Between the ages of ten and twelve, he worked in a coal mine. He
attended school while continuing to work in the mines. In 1871, he went to work as a
houseboy for the wife of Gen. Lewis Ruffner, owner of the mines.
Securing an Education ...
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Samuel Chapman Armstrong
In 1872, at age sixteen, Booker T. Washington entered Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute in Virginia. The dominant personality at the school, which had
opened in 1868 under the auspices of the American Missionary Association, was the
principal, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, the son of American missionaries in Hawaii.
Armstrong, who had commanded Black troops in the Civil War, believed that the
progress of freedmen and their descendants depended on education of a special
sort, which would be practical and utilitarian and would at the same time inculcate
character and morality.
Washington traveled most of the distance from Malden to Hampton on foot, a
iving
penniless. His entrance examination to Hampton was to clean a room. The teache
inspected his work with a spotless, white handkerchief. Booker was admitted. He
was given work as a janitor to pay the cost of his room and board, and Armstrong
a
anged for a White benefactor to pay his tuition.
At Hampton, Washington studied academic subjects and agriculture, which included
work in the �elds and pigsties. He also learned lessons in personal cleanliness and
good manners. His special interest was public speaking and debate. He was jubilant
when he was chosen to speak at his commencement.
The most important part of his experience at Hampton was his association with
Armstrong, who he described in his autobiography as "a great man - the noblest,
arest human being it has ever been my privilege to meet." From Armstrong,
Washington derived much of his educational philosophy.
After graduating from Hampton with honors in 1875, Washington returned to
Malden to teach. For eight months he was a student at Wayland Seminary, an
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institution with a cu
iculum that was entirely academic. This experience reinforced
his belief in an educational system that emphasized practical skills and self-help. In
1879, Washington returned to Hampton to teach in a program for American Indians.
Educating Others ...
Physics Class at Tuskegee Institute
In 1880, a bill that included a yearly appropriation of $2,000 was passed by the
Alabama State Legislature to establish a school for Blacks in Macon County. This
action was generated by two men - Lewis Adams, a former slave, and George W.
Campbell, a former slave owner. On Fe
uary 12, 1881, Governor Rufus Willis Co
signed the bill into law, establishing the Tuskegee Normal School for the training of
Black teachers.
Armstrong was invited to recommend a White teacher as principal of the school.
Instead, he suggested Washington, who was accepted. When Washington a
ived at
Tuskegee, he found that no land or buildings had been acquired for the projected
school, nor was there any money for these purposes since the appropriation was fo
salaries only. Undaunted, Washington began selling the idea of the school, recruiting
students and seeking support of local Whites.
The school opened July 4, 1881, in a shanty loaned by a Black church, Butler A.M.E.
Zion. With money bo
owed from Hampton Institute's treasurer, Washington
purchased an abandoned 100-acre plantation on the outskirts of Tuskegee. Students
uilt a kiln, made
icks for buildings and sold
icks to raise money. Within a few
years, they built a classroom building, a dining hall, a girl’s dormitory and a chapel.
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By 1888, the 540-acre Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute had an enrollment
of more than 400 and offered training in such skilled trades as carpentry, cabinet-
omaking, printing, shoemaking and tinsmithing. Boys also studied farming and
dairying, while girls learned such domestic skills as cooking and sewing.
Through their own labor, students supplied a large part of the needs of the school. In
the academic departments, Washington insisted that efforts be made to relate the
subject matter to the actual experiences of the students. Strong emphasis was
placed on personal hygiene, manners and character building.
Students followed a rigid schedule of study and work, arising at �ve in the morning
and retiring at nine-thirty at night. Although Tuskegee was non-denominational, all
students were required to attend chapel daily and a series of religious services on
Sunday. Washington himself usually spoke to the students on Sunday evening.
Olivia Davidson, a graduate of Hampton and Framingham State Normal School in
Massachusetts, became teacher and assistant principal at Tuskegee in 1881. In 1885,
Washington's older
other John, also a Hampton graduate, came to Tuskegee to
direct the vocational training program.
Other notable additions to the staff were acclaimed scientist Dr. George Washington
Carver, who became director of the agriculture program in 1896; Emmett J. Scott,
who became Washington 's private secretary in 1897; and Monroe Nathan Work,
who became head of the Records and Research Department in 1908.
Establishing a legacy ...
Margaret Mu
ay Washington
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On Tuskegee's 25th anniversary, Washington had transformed an idea into a 2,000-
acre, eighty-three building campus that, combined with such personal property as
equipment, live stock and stock in trade, was valued at $831,895. Tuskegee's
endowment fund was $1,275,644 and training in thirty-seven industries was
available for the more than 1,500 students enrolled that year.
Through progress at Tuskegee, Washington showed that an oppressed people could
advance. His concept of practical education was a contribution to the general �eld of
education. His writings, which included 40 books, were widely read and highly
egarded. Among his works was an autobiography titled "Up From Slavery" (1901),
"Character Building" (1902), "My Larger Education" (1911), and "The Man Farthest
Down" (1912).Â
Washington settled into the national scene on opening day of the Atlanta Exposition
in 1895 when he spoke about "The New Negro," one with "the knowledge of how to
live ... how to cultivate the soil, to husband their resources, and make the most of
their opportunities."
Eye
ows raised again on Oct. 16, 1901, when Washington became the �rst Black
person to dine at the White House. Counsel to many U.S. presidents, he was there at
the invitation of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Washington was ma
ied three times. In 1882, he ma
ied his Malden sweetheart,
Fannie Norton Smith. She died two years later, leaving an infant daughter, Portia
(who ma
ied William Sidney Pittman, an architect, in 1907).
In 1885, Washington ma
ied Hampton graduate Olivia Davidson, the assistant
principal of Tuskegee, who died in 1889. Two sons were born to this ma
iage:
Booker Taliafe
o, Jr. and Ernest Davidson.
In 1893, Washington ma
ied Fisk University graduate Margaret James Mu
ay, who
had come to Tuskegee as lady principal in 1889 and directed the programs for female
students and initiated the Women's Meetings. Margaret Mu
ay Washington died in
1925.
Margaret and her husband's three children and four grandchildren survived
Washington, who died November 14, 1915, at age �fty-nine of arteriosclerosis and
exhaustion. He died after an illness in St. Luke's hospital, New York City, where he
had been admitted on November 5. Aware that the end was near, he left with his wife
and his physician, Dr. John A. Kennedy, Sr., on November 12, so that he could die in
Tuskegee.
Booker T. Washington's funeral on November 17, 1915 was held in the Tuskegee
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Institute Chapel, and was attended by nearly 8,000 people. He was buried on
campus in a
ick tomb, made by students, on a hill commanding a view of the entire
campus.
ReferencesÂ
Dr. Booker Taliafe
o Washington Founder and First President of Tuskegee Normal
and Industrial Institute. Tuskegee University. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2021,
from https:
www.tuskegee.edu/discover-tu/tu-presidents
ooker-t-washington.
(https:
www.tuskegee.edu/discover-tu/tu-presidents
ooker-t-washington.)
https:
www.tuskegee.edu/discover-tu/tu-presidents
ooker-t-washington.