Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born into slavery and freed with his family at the end of the Civil War in 1865. Encouraged to get an education, he later graduated from seminary in Washington, D.C., and by 1879 taught at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. Emancipated as a child rather than freeborn, he became a teacher, social activist, national spokesperson for African-Americans, and at age 25 the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, which opened on July 4, 1881; he remained head of the school until his death in 1915. From 1890 to 1915, he stood as a dominant figure among African-Americans, though many saw his famous Atlanta Exhibition address to a largely white audience as accommodating segregation because he said economic equality was more important than social equality. In 1900 he founded the National Negro Business League to promote African-Americans' commercial, agricultural, educational, and industrial advancement, and in 1901 his autobiography, Up From Slavery, became a best seller and led to an invitation to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt, making him the landmark's first African-American visitor. By the time he died in 1915, he had built Tuskegee Institute into a thriving institution and advanced educational opportunities for African-Americans in the South through a nationwide network of support and ceaseless effort.

Indianapolis city (balance), Indiana · United States