To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.""Address of Booker T. Washington,"
Atlanta, Georgia, September 18, 1895.
African American Perspectives, 1818-1907Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 on the plantation of James Burroughs near Hale's Ford, Virginia. In 1865, his family moved to West Virginia where Washington worked for a short time in a salt furnace and a coal mine. While attending the Hampton Institute, in Hampton, Virginia, Washington came under the influence of school founder Samuel Chapman Armstrong whom he credited with instilling in him a strong work ethic. After graduating from Hampton, Washington returned to Malden, West Virginia, and taught school for several years.
In 1881, Washington established the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. With his political savvy and talent for fund-raising, he quickly transformed the small collection of dilapidated buildings into one of the finest and most renowned African-American educational institutions in the country.
From 1895 to 1915, Washington was probably the most politically powerful African-American in the country. Highly regarded by Northern philanthropists, lauded by Republican Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and hailed as a leader by members of the African-American press, Washington's authority crossed racial lines. He received honorary degrees from Harvard University and Dartmouth College. His autobiography, the classic Up From Slavery, has been translated into many languages and read all over the world. Overcome by a life of service and hard work, Washington died on November 14, 1915 at the age of fifty-nine.
