Washington, Booker T.

Khaula Murtadha

Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856–1915) was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia in 1856. His duties included taking water to slaves working in the fields. Later, he worked in the salt and coal mines of West Virginia, but at the age of 16, Washington entered the Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute in Virginia. He was noted for his abilities by former brigadier general in the Union Army, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, the principal, who then mentored and trained him in the Hampton model of Negro education. The Hampton Institute prepared teachers for training Black workers across the South, a systematic approach to mitigating the disenfranchisement and economic subordination of African American people. Armstrong was committed to economically and politically stabilizing the South and advocated a belief that Black people were most suited for manual labor and the vocational trades. Despite persistent protest emanating from the Black press and Black leaders interested ...

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