Booker T. Washington was an African-American scholar, educator and writer. He helped to found the Tuskegee Institute, a college for African-American students in Alabama. Along with his teaching work, Washington wrote books relating his life experience, including his autobiography Up From Slavery.http://www.nps.gov/archive/bowa/btwbio.html

Washington was born as a slave in 1856. His mother was a black slave and his father was an unknown white man. He later took the first name of his stepfather as his own surname.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbooker.htm After his family was freed following the Civil War, Booker desired to attend school. There were none nearby his home and his family was unable to help him financially, so he walked 200 miles to travel to the Hampton Institute in Virginia. He put himself through school by working on the campus as a janitor.http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/washington_b.htm

Booker T. Washington got his start as an educator at a small school in Malden, West Virginia in 1975. Three years later, he began teaching at a school for American Indians. When the establishment of the Tuskegee Institute was proposed in 1880. Washington was suggested as the teacher of the school.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbooker.htm

Originally based in a shack, the Tuskegee Institute taught African-Americans practical skills, such as farming, carpentry and cabinetmaking, as well as academic subjects. To garner financial support for the school from wealthy White residents, Washington took a socially conservative stance regarding civil rights for Black people. Instead of advocating rebellion, Washington stated that African-Americans should work hard to prove their loyalty to the United States before receiving rights, including the right to vote.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbooker.htm

Washington's views made him palatable to White supporters and he continued to receive funding for his school.http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/washington_b.htm However, organizations founded for Black advancement, such as the Niagara Movement founded by W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP, disagreed strongly with Washington's acquiescence of ill treatment for African-Americans. In secret, Washington supported several civil rights organizations but kept these views private so as not to disturb his political support from Whites. He died in 1915 and the school he helped to found continues to operate today as Tuskegee University, a historically Black college.http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/washington/bio.html