Booker T. Washington was known as one of the most influential African Americans of his time. He was born a slave on April 5, 1856 of an unknown white man and a slave mother. He attended school briefly, but mainly worked as a young boy. He entered Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia where he showed a special interest in public speaking and debate. In 1881 he went to Tuskegee, Alabama to work as a principal for a new Negro teacher’s school that received no funding for buildings by the Alabama Legislature. Washington started the school in a shanty owned by a black church and then purchased a plantation with funds loaned by the Hampton Institute. By 1888 the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute had more than 400 students. One of his main problems was finding money to run the institution. To raise money for the institute, Washington went on speaking tours publicizing the
As a persuasive speaker, he developed a national reputation as a reasonable person of his race. His non-threatening racial views gave Washington the title as “The Great Accommodator”. He received money from white northerners such as Andrew Carnagie, John D. Rockefeller, Collins P. Huntington, and Robert C. Ogden. William H. Baldwin also served on the school’s board. They were impressed with his works and his non-threatening racial views. He believed that blacks should not push to attain equal civil and political rights with whites. It was best to improve their economic skills and the equality of their character. Improvement rested mainly on the shoulders of the black man. They would eventually earn the respect of the white man. These ideas were very popular with a lot of whites. His address in 1895 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Ga. made him nationally known. The speech, known as
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