Booker+T.+Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington
He was born 1856 as a slave in Hale's Ford and died 1915. He had to work in salt furnaces and coal mines at the age of nine years. Booker was an intelligent and curious child, but he was frustrated when he could not receive good schooling locally. When he was 16 his parents allowed him to quit work and go to school. Washington became a teacher because he thought that education would rause his people to equality in this country. He traveled the country unceasingly to raise funds from blacks and whites. Soon he became a well-known speaker. In 1895, Washington was asked to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition, an unprecedented honor for an African American. His Atlanta Compromise speech explained his major thesis, that blacks could secure their constitutional rights through their own economic and moral advancement rather than through legal and political changes. Although his conciliatory stand angered some blacks who feared it would encourage the foes of equal rights, whites approved of his views. Thus his major achievement was to win over diverse elements among Southern whites, without whose support the programs he envisioned and brought into being would have been impossible. In addition to Tuskegee Institute, which still educates many today, Washington instituted a variety of programs for rural extension work, and helped to establish the National Negro Business League. Shortly after the election of President William McKinley in 1896, a movement was set in motion that Washington be named to a cabinet post, but he withdrew his name from consideration, preferring to work outside the political arena. He died on November 14, 1915.

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