Booker T Washington's Impact On American Education

Booker T. Washington was the most important black educator of the late and early 20th centuries; he positively impacted the history of America. Booker Taliaferro was born a mulatto slave in Franklin County, Virginia on April 5th 1856. Booker had 3 other si His father was an unknown white man and his mother was a slave of James Burroughs. His mothers “master” was a small farmer from Virginia. His mother got married to a man named Washington Ferguson. When booker started school he took his stepfathers name and became known as Booker T. Washington. After the civil war the family moved Malden, West Virginia. When the emancipation proclamation was read to booker and his family in front of the Burroughs house, his family soon left to join his stepfather
in Malden, West Virginia. Ferguson worked in the salt mines and at the age of 9 Booker found employment as a salt-packer because his family was so poverty stricken after emancipation.
Within a few years, Booker was taken in as a houseboy by a wealthy towns-woman who further encouraged his longing to learn. When booker Taliaferro Washington was 16 his parents allowed him to quit work to go to school. They had no money to help him, so he walked 200 miles to attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia and paid his tuition and board there by working as the janitor. Booker dedicated himself to the idea that education would help people of color to gain equality and respect in this country, Washington became a teacher in 1875. He first taught in his home town of Franklin county, Virginia. Then he taught at the Hampton Institute, and then in 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. As leader and creator of the Institute, he traveled the country constantly to raise funds from blacks and whites both. Soon he became a well known speaker. In 1895, Booker was asked to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition, an unknown 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 instead of through legal and political changes.
Although his appeasing stand angered some blacks who were afraid that the “haters” of equal rights, whites, approved of his views.
Consequently his major achievement was to win over diverse elements among Southern whites, without their support the programs he envisioned and brought into being would have been impossible. In addition to Tuskegee Institute, which still educates many today, Booker instituted many different programs for rural extension work, and helped to establish the National Negro Business League (NNBL). In September, 1895, Washington became a national figure when his speech at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta was widely reported by the country's newspapers. Washington's conservative views made him popular with white politicians who were keen that he should become the new leader of the African American population. To help him in this President William McKinley visited the Tuskegee Institute and praised Washington's achievements. 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. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Washington to visit him in the White House. To southern whites this was going too far. One editor wrote: "With our long-matured views on the subject of social intercourse between blacks and whites, the least we can say now
is that we deplore the President's taste, and we distrust his wisdom." Washington now spent most of his time on the lecture circuit. His African American critics who objected to the way Washington argued that it were the role of blacks to serve whites, and that those black leaders who demanded social equality were political extremists. In 1903 William Du Bois joined the attack on Washington with his essay on his work in The Soul of Black Folks. Washington retaliated with criticisms of Du Bois and his Niagara Movement. The two men also clashed over the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

The following year, William Du Bois and twenty-two other prominent African Americans signed a statement claiming: "We are compelled to point out that Mr.
Washington's large financial responsibilities have made him dependent on the rich charitable public and that, for this reason, he has for years been compelled to tell, not the whole truth, but that part of it which certain powerful interests in America wish to appear as the whole truth."Although he now had a large number of critics, Washington continued to be consulted by powerful white politicians and had a say in the African American appointments made by Theodore Roosevelt and William H.
Taft.

Booker Taliaferro Washington was taken ill and entered St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, on 5th November, 1915. Suffering from arteriosclerosis he was warned that he did not have long to live. He decided to travel to Tuskegee where he died on 14th November. Over 8,000 people attended his funeral held in the Tuskegee Institute Chapel.

Work cited
• Up from slavery by Booker T. Washington
• The African American Almanac 7th edition, Gale
• Booker t. Washington facts http://bookertwashingtonfacts.com/
• Spartacus educational http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbooker.htm
• Booker t. Washington http://gardenofpraise.com/ibdbookr.htm