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Booker
T. Washington
Educator
First Stamp to honor African American
Scott # 873
Issued on April 7, 1940 at the Tuskegee Institute |
Booker T. Washington was the first president
and founder of Tuskegee University and the most influential spokesperson for
African Americans from 1895 until 1915. Booker was born a slave in Franklin
County, Virginia on April 5, 1856.
In 1865, after emancipation, the family moved
to Malden, West Virginia. Booker's family were very poor, they couldn't afford
regular schooling for any of their children and at age nine, Booker began
working in the coal mines.
Booker was determined to better himself and in
1872 he enrolled at the Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute. He worked at odd jobs and as a
janitor to pay his tuition and living expenses. Booker graduated in 1875 and
began teaching in Malden. He taught adults at night and children during the
day. In 1878, Booker enrolled at Wayland Seminary in Washington D.C. and in
1879 he took a job teaching at the Hampton
Institute.
In 1881 Booker founded the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute. The school was modeled after the
Hampton Institute and consisted of only two small buildings. Tuskegee was to
become Booker's life work and a monument to his perseverance and dedication to
the cause of educating and bettering the lot of African Americans. The
Tuskegee Institute became Tuskegee
University in 1985 and has a current enrollment of over 3000
students. Today, the University offers degrees in architecture, business
administration, computer technology, engineering, teaching, liberal arts,
agriculture, nursing and the veterinary arts. The school encompasses
over 5000 acres and contains 70 buildings.
Booker believed that the interests of African
Americans in the post-Reconstruction
era could best be served by obtaining an education in crafts and
industrial skills. Booker felt that African Americans should concentrate on
improving their industrial and farming skills rather than pursue full civil
rights. His beliefs and attitudes in this area later led to a break between
Booker and W.E.B.
Dubois. Early Civil Rights leaders considered him an Uncle
Tom and this stain on his reputation persists today. Booker summed
up his beliefs in a speech at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, stating, In
all things that are purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet one
as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
The majority of African
Americans in those times agreed with Booker's approach and white leaders and
politicians doled out support and funds to Black institutions based on
his recommendations. Booker received an honorary degree from Harvard
University in 1896 and Dartmouth in 1901. He wrote over a dozen books
including his autobiography, Up
From Slavery in 1901.
Booker T. Washington died
in Tuskegee, Alabama on November 14, 1915.
