1/16/2021 Booker T. Washington - Biography, W.E.B.
Dubois & Facts - HISTORY
UPDATED: DEC 13, 2019 · ORIGINAL: OCT 29, 2009
Booker T. Washington
HISTORY.COM EDITORS
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was
CONTENTS born into slavery and rose to become a
leading African American intellectual of
1. Booker T. Washington’s Parents the 19 century, founding Tuskegee
and Early Life Normal and Industrial Institute (Now
Tuskegee University) in 1881 and the
2. Booker T. Washington’s National Negro Business League two
Education
decades later. Washington advised
3. Booker T. Washington Beliefs Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and
And Rivalry with W.E.B. Du Bois William Howard Taft. His infamous
4. Books By Booker T. Washington conflicts with black leaders like W. E. B.
Du Bois over segregation caused a stir,
5. Booker T. Washington: First but today, he is remembered as the most
African American in the White
influential African American speaker of
House
his time.
6. Booker T. Washington Death
Booker T.
And Legacy
7. Sources
Washington’s
Parents and Early
Life
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington 1/5
1/16/2021 Booker T. Washington - Biography, W.E.B. Dubois & Facts - HISTORY
Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on April 5, 1856 in a slave hut in Franklin
County, Virginia. His mother was a cook for the plantation’s owner. His father, a white
man, was unknown to Washington. At the close of the Civil War, all the slaves owned
by James and Elizabeth Burroughs—including 9-year-old Booker, his siblings, and his
mother—were freed. Jane moved her family to Malden, West Virginia. Soon after, she
married Washington Ferguson, a free black man.
Booker T. Washington’s Education
In Malden, Washington was only allowed to go to school after working from 4-9 AM
each morning in a local salt works before class. It was at a second job in a local
coalmine where he first heard two fellow works discuss the Hampton Institute, a
school for former slaves in southeastern Virginia founded in 1868 by Brigadier
General Samuel Chapman. Chapman had been a leader of black troops for the Union
during the Civil War and was dedicated to improving educational opportunities for
African Americans.
In 1872, Washington walked the 500 miles to Hampton, where he was an excellent
student and received high grades. He went on to study at Wayland Seminary in
Washington, D.C., but had so impressed Chapman that he was invited to return to
Hampton as a teacher in 1879. It was Chapman who would refer Washington for a
role as principal of a new school for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama: The
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, today’s Tuskegee University. Washington
assumed the role in 1881 at age 25 and would work at The Tuskegee Institute until his
death in 1915.
It was Washington who hired George Washington Carver to teach agriculture at
Tuskegee in 1896. Carver would go on to be a celebrated figure in black history in his
own right, making huge advances in botany and farming technology.
Booker T. Washington Beliefs And
Rivalry with W.E.B. Du Bois
Life in the post-Reconstruction era South was challenging for blacks. Discrimination
was rife in the age of Jim Crow Laws. Exercising the right to vote under the 15
Amendment was dangerous, and access to jobs and education was severely limited.
With the dawn of the Ku Klux Klan, the threat of retaliatory violence for advocating for
civil rights was real. In perhaps his most famous speech, given on September 18,
1895, Washington told a majority white audience in Atlanta that the way forward for
African Americans was self-improvement through an attempt to “dignify and glorify
common labor.” He felt it was better to remain separate from whites than to attempt
desegregation as long as whites granted their black countrymen and women access to
economic progress, education, and justice under U.S. courts:
"The wisest of my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is
the extremest folly and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will
come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial
forcing. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more
than to spend a dollar in an opera house."
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington 2/5
1/16/2021 Booker T. Washington - Biography, W.E.B. Dubois & Facts - HISTORY
His speech was sharply criticized by W.E.B. Du Bois, who repudiated what he called
“The Atlanta Comprise” in a chapter of his famous 1903 book, “The Souls of Black
Folk.” Opposition to Washington’s views on race inspired the Niagara Movement
(1905-1909). Du Bois would go on to found the NAACP in 1909.
Because of Washington’s outsized stature in the black community, dissenting views
were strongly squashed. Du Bois and others criticized Washington’s harsh treatment
of rival black newspapers and black thinkers who dared to challenge his opinions and
authority.
Books By Booker T. Washington
Washington, a famed public speaker known for his sense of humor, was also the
author of five books:
· “The Story of My Life and Work” (1900)
· “Up From Slavery” (1901)
· “The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery” (1909)
· “My Larger Education” (1911)
· “The Man Farthest Down” (1912)
Booker T. Washington: First African
American in the White House
Booker T. Washington became the first African American to be invited to the White
House in 1901, when President Theodore Roosevelt invited him to dine with him. It
caused a huge uproar among white Americans—especially in the Jim Crow South—and
in the press, and came on the heels of the publication of his autobiography, “Up From
Slavery.” But Roosevelt saw Washington as a brilliant advisor on racial matters, a
practice his successor, President William Howard Taft, continued.
Booker T. Washington Death And
Legacy
Booker T. Washington’s legacy is complex. While he lived through an epic sea change
in the lives of African Americans, his public views supporting segregation seem
outdated today. His emphasis on economic self-determination over political and civil
rights fell out of favor as the views of his largest critic, W.E.B. Du Bois, took root and
inspired the civil rights movement. We now know that Washington secretly financed
court cases that challenged segregation and wrote letters in code to defend against
lynch mobs. His work in the field of education helped give access to new hope for
thousands of African Americans.
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington 3/5
1/16/2021 Booker T. Washington - Biography, W.E.B. Dubois & Facts - HISTORY
By 1913, at the dawn of the administration of Woodrow Wilson, Washington had
largely fallen out of favor. He remained at the Tuskegee Institute until congestive
heart failure ended his life on November 14, 1915. He was 59.
Washington left behind a vastly improved Tuskegee Institute with over 1,500
students, a faculty of 200 and an endowment of nearly $2 million to continue to carry
on its work.
READ MORE: 8 Things You Might Not Know About Booker T. Washington
Sources
Booker T. Washington. Biography.com
The Debate Between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Frontline.
Jim Crow Stories: Booker T. Washington. Thirteen.org.
Booker T. Washington. Britannica.
Citation Information
Article Title
Booker T. Washington
Author
History.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington
Access Date
January 16, 2021
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 31, 2020
Original Published Date
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington 4/5
1/16/2021 Booker T. Washington - Biography, W.E.B. Dubois & Facts - HISTORY
October 29, 2009
FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click
here to contact us!
VIDEOS
RELATED CONTENT
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington 5/5
