He was born about 1858 into the cabin of a slave woman and being the son of a white man. His place of birth was Franklin County, Virginia. He later named himself Booker T. Washington. As time went by he went to school and became well educated and would go to Alabama to begin the Tuskegee Institute which became one of the most famous schools in America. He was training the blacks of his time for good jobs. In a speech he made in Atlanta, GA. in 1895 he said, "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." He was asking that blacks and whites work together in all civil affairs but remain separate in social relations. " Many called the speech, " The Atlanta Compromise." He passed away in 1915 but he is remembered by both blacks and whites as a great American. He brought education to his people as he survived a rough past to become a Doctor of Laws in his later years.
Reference:
1. The History of the Negro, 1970.
