Booker T. Washington was born enslaved on the nearby Burroughs plantation on April 5, 1856. He graduated from Hampton Institute in 1875, where he became an instructor. Because of his achievements as an educator, he was selected to establish a normal school for blacks in Alabama that later became the Tuskegee Institute. Recognized as an orator and as the author of Up From Slavery, he exerted great influence both in the Republican Party and as a humanitarian for the benefit of his fellow blacks. He died November 14, 1915.