ABSTRACT
Booker T. Washington was born a slave near Lynchburg, Virginia. After a childhood of extreme deprivation he moved with his mother and stepfather to Meldon, West Virginia. In 1872, after almost literally giving himself his early education, Washington gained admittance to Hampton Institute in Virginia and studied to be a teacher. After teaching for a short period at Hampton, he was recommended by General Armstrong of Hampton to start a similar industrial school at Tuskegee, Alabama. Tuskegee was opened on July 4, 1881, and Washington proved himself to be an able administrator and negotiator as well as teacher. Stressing the need for the Negro to learn the trades necessary for self-sufficiency, Washington’s philosophy was congenial to the political and social climate of the South and the country as a whole.
