Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was born to a slave in Franklin County, Virginia. His father was an unknown white man from a neighboring plantation. His mother, Jane, worked as a cook for the plantation owner James Burroughs. As a very young boy, he went to work carrying 100 lb. sacks of grain to the plantation’s mill. Since he was small, he had trouble toting the heavy bags and would suffer beatings for it. He would pass the neighborhood school and look inside, wishing he could participate. This was his first exposure to education.
After the Civil War, he and his mother moved to Malden, West Virginia, where she married freedman Washington Ferguson. Booker went to work in a salt mine with his stepfather instead of going to school, but his mother noticed his thirst for knowledge and got him a book from which he learned the alphabet and how to read and write basic words. He juggled work and studying by getting up at 4 a.m. to practice and study. He also convinced the school teacher to give him lessons at night after his work day was done. It was about this time that he took his stepfather’s first name as his last name.
At the age of 11 he got a job as a houseboy for Viola Ruffner, the wife of the coal mine owner Lewis Ruffner. Mrs. Ruffner was a strict taskmaster and had gone through lots of boys who didn’t meet her standards. Booker figured out quickly that she demanded near perfection in keeping her house clean and set out to meet her standards. In turn, she saw something in Booker – his maturity, intelligence and integrity – and she recognized his desire for an education. She therefore allowed him to go to school for an hour a day during the winter months.
In 1872, at the age of 16, Booker T. Washington left home to pursue his dream of an education at Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia, 500 miles away. He had saved a little money so he was able to take the stage part way. From there he walked or begged for rides, stopping along the way to take odd jobs to pay for food. When he was just 26 miles from Hampton he slept under a bridge and worked during the day to save money for school.
When he arrived at the school, with only .50 in his pocket, the headmistress was skeptical, of his scruffy appearance, but gave him a job cleaning a classroom immediately to see just how serious he was. She asked him to clean the chalk boards and erasers. When she came back a couple of hours later the whole room was spotless. He was hired on as janitor to help pay for tuition. Soon he was discovered by the school’s founder, General Samuel C. Armstrong, who offered him a partial scholarship and became a mentor to Booker.
Prior to attending Hampton, Booker, like many black men and women of this time, viewed education as a ticket to an easy life, free from labor. Hampton challenged his thinking by instilling these three virtues: the beauty and dignity of hard work, and its inherent benefits, to live selflessly by helping others and the joy of learning and improving the mind.
Upon graduation from Hampton, Booker returned to Malden, Virginia and taught at his old grade school for a short time. He then attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. After speaking at Hampton’s 1879 graduation ceremony, Gen. Armstrong offered him a teaching position. In 1881, the Alabama legislature approved $2,000 for a “colored” school, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (known now as Tuskegee University). Gen. Armstrong recommended Booker T. Washington for the job of running the new school.
Under his leadership, Tuskegee became a leading school in the county. Washington’s philosophy, which created controversy within the African-American community in the North, was that if African Americans worked hard and obtained financial independence and cultural advancement, they would eventually win acceptance and respect from the white community. This in turn would translate into full voting rights. Activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois vehemently opposed this line of thinking.
Booker T. Washington was invited by President Theodore Roosevelt to the White House, making him the first African American to be so honored. Both President Roosevelt and President Taft used Washington as an adviser on racial matters. Both his White House visit and the publication of his autobiography, Up from Slavery, brought both criticism and acclaim from many Americans. In the African American community some saw him as a hero while others, like Du Bois, saw him as a traitor.
Booker T. Washington was an extraordinary man who played a very pivotal role in America’s Black history through promoting education that included both practical skills and academics. He was a complex man who fully believed in full integration of Black-Americans and quietly worked for that behind the scenes. By 1913, Washington lost much of his influence due to the lack of interest in racial integration and racial equality by the newly inaugurated Wilson administration.
Booker T. Washington worked as the head of Tuskegee Institute until his death in late 1915. I love this quote from Booker T. Washington: “I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him”. From Bob Cutshall, More Light for the Day
Next week: George Washington Carver
Dinner Table Discussion Question: How much are you or were you willing to sacrifice to educate yourself?
“Booker T. Washington”, The Biography Channel website, 2014,
http://www.biography.com/people/booker-t-washington-9524663 [accessed Feb 03, 2014] and Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington