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Today in History: Booker T. Washington Is Born
04/05/10
African-American educator, author, and orator Booker T. Washington was born a slave on a Virginia tobacco farm on April 5, 1856. Following emancipation in 1865, he worked in a salt mine and at other menial jobs while steadfastly pursuing an education. He worked his way through the Hampton Institute in Virginia, became a teacher, and in 1881 was named head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a newly formed college aimed at educating freed slaves.
Washington traveled the country to promote and raise funds for the Tuskegee Institute. He eventually gained a reputation as a great speaker and the nation’s foremost black educator. In 1895 Washington was invited to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta. His historic Atlanta Exposition Address launched him into the national spotlight and is viewed by historians as one of the most important speeches ever made by an African American.
In his speech, Washington laid out his theory that self-improvement through education—rather than legal and political changes made by whites—held the key to the societal advancement of blacks. Although Washington’s conciliatory remarks earned the approval of Southern whites, his stance came under criticism from other African American leaders. Critics derided Washington as an accommodationist who was willing to accept segregation and the political disenfranchisement of African Americans in exchange for support from white benefactors. Washington remained a prominent figure in the discussion of race in America until his death on November 14, 1915.
Read BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S ATLANTA EXPOSITION ADDRESS