Booker T. Washington was born in Hale’s Ford, Virginia, on April 5, 1856, as the slave of James Burroughs.  He went to a school in Franklin County, but only to carry James Burroughs’ daughter’s books.  After the Civil War ended and freedom was granted to the slaves, his family was so poor that he had to work in salt furnaces and coal mines starting at nine years old.  He had to start working at four o’clock in the morning so that he could attend school later in the day.    When Washington was sixteen, he quit work to go to school.  He had to walk 500 miles to go to school at the Hampton Institute in Virginia.  When he arrived at the Institute, he was completely broke and hungry.  He paid for his schooling and boarding there by being the janitor. 

            Booker T. Washington became a teacher, thinking that education could raise fellow African Americans to become equal.  Washington first taught in Tinkersville, West Virginia for a mere three years.  In 1878, he left his job teaching in Tinkersville to go to Wayland Seminary in Washington D.C.  However, he quit the school after only six months there.  In 1879, he returned to the Hampton Institute to teach.  In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, and became the world’s most recognized African American educational leader.  The Tuskegee Institute made great contributions to American society, including one of his teachers, George Washington Carver.  However, it was hard for the school to find enough money to keep running.  The money that they got from the state was not enough and it fluctuated.  So, he traveled the country raising money for his institute which not only benefited blacks, but whites as well.  A lot of the money came from white northerners who liked Booker T. Washington’s views.  Extremely wealthy people like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie frequently donated money to the Institute. 

            In 1895, an unprecedented event occurred.  Washington was invited to give a speech at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition.  There, he explained his thoughts.  He believed that blacks could gain political and social power by becoming more economically independent.  Actually, many whites in the South approved of his views.  Without the support of these whites, it probably would have been impossible to continue the Tuskegee Institute.  In 1901, he wrote a very popular autobiography called “Up From Slavery.”  He even was an advisor to Theodore Roosevelt.  Washington was invited to dinner at the White House with Theodore Roosevelt.  He was the first African American to have this honor.  However, a lot of white people thought that it was horrible for whites and African Americans to mix socially.  President Roosevelt said that he never did anything wrong, but Booker T. Washington was never again invited to dine at the White House.

            After a while, Washington’s political support from other African Americans began to go down.  Most Southern Institutions were taken over by racist white southerners after Reconstruction, and they did not have any desire to give the blacks more rights.

            Booker Taliafero Washington accomplished many things during his lifetime.  Not only did he found Tuskegee Institute, which is still running today, he helped to start the National Negro Business League.  When President William McKinley was inaugurated in 1896, many people wanted Washington to be named to a cabinet post.  However, he withdrew himself from consideration, preferring not to get into politics.  In the final years of his life, Washington didn’t feel like just letting whites persecute blacks freely.  He gave speeches against racism.  In 1915, he protested the stereotypical portrait of African Americans depicted in a new movie called “Birth of a Nation.”  A few months later on November 14, 1915, Booker T. Washington died.