Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was born enslaved on a small farm in Virginia. After emancipation in 1865, he worked in coal mines at night and attended school during the day. At age sixteen, he enrolled at the Hampton Institute, which emphasized the skilled trades alongside teacher training for its Black and Native American students. In 1881, after teaching for several years, Washington was appointed director of what became the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. There he established a curriculum of science and manual arts to cultivate Black excellence and further economic and social advancement.