AOL Web Search

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute and later formed the National...

Booker T. Washington, educator and reformer, first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), and the most influential spokesman for African Americans between 1895 and 1915.

Who Was Booker T. Washington? Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington put himself through school and became a teacher after the Civil War. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial...

Booker T. Washington (April 5, 1856–November 14, 1915) was a prominent Black educator, author, and leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Enslaved from birth, Washington rose to a position of power and influence, founding the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881 and overseeing its growth into a well-respected Black university.

From 1895 until his death in 1915, Booker T. Washington, a former slave who had built Tuskegee Institute in Alabama into a major centre of industrial training for African American youths, was the country’s dominant Black leader.

Booker T. Washington is one of the most controversial and dominant figures in African American history. According to his autobiography Up From Slavery (1901), he did not know the exact year, date, and place of his birth or his father’s name. Yet, it is widely understood that he was born enslaved on April 5, 1856 in Hale’s Ford, Virginia.

Descriptive summary of the many achievements of Booker T. Washington who rose from slavery to become an esteemed educator, the first president of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama, an influential spokesman for African Americans, and the writer of celebrated books.

Booker T. Washington, educator and reformer, first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), and the most influential spokesman for African Americans between 1895 and 1915. In the Atlanta Compromise he articulated the benefits of vocational education.