Booker Taliaferro Washington was born the son of a slave. At the close of the Civil War in 1865, he moved with his stepfather to Malden, West Virginia, where he eventually worked in the coal mines. His first classroom education at the local school for black children was squeezed in while continuing to work full time in the mines. He was able to enroll at Hampton Institute in the fall of 1872. Washington advocated a philosophy of economic self-reliance. He was an admired educator, social activist and writer. He was the founder and for many years the president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He was widely regarded as the best-known and most powerful black American from 1895 until his death in 1915.
Web sites
- Booker T. Washington National Monument
- InfoPlease ("Black History Month")
- LOC African American Odyssey
- Tuskegee Institute
- University of Illinois Press - The Booker T. Washington Papers
Catalog
Search the library's catalog for Booker T Washington
Databases
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