Booker T Washington -- USA

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an African American educator, author, orator, advisor to Republican presidents, and black political leader. 

He was the dominant figure in the African American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. Representative of the last generation of black American leaders born in slavery, he spoke on behalf of the large majority of blacks who lived in the South. Washington maintained power because of his ability to gain support of numerous groups: influential whites, black business, educational and religious communities nationwide; financial donations from philanthropists, and his accommodation to the political realities of Jim Crow segregation.

Washington was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved woman, and a white father who was a  planter, in a rural area of the south western Virginia Piedmont.  After emancipation, the family moved to West Virginia; Washington worked in a variety of manual labour jobs before seeking an education.  He had always been known as “Booker” until he decided to add the name “Washington” after feeling the pressure to have two names.  

He worked his way through Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (Hampton University) and Wayland Seminary (Virginia Union University).  In 1876, Washington returned to Malden, West Virginia, teaching Sunday School at the African Zion Baptist Church; he married his first wife, Fannie Smith, at the church in 1881.  After teaching at Hampton for a while and on the recommendation of Hampton officials, he became the first principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (Tuskegee University), which opened on July 4, 1881.

As the principal of Tuskegee Institute, Washington had the vehicle and platform to practice his educational philosophy and his theory concerning the advancement of African Americans. He built a nationwide network of supporters in many black communities, with black ministers, educators and businessmen composing his core supporters.  Washington played a dominant role in black politics, winning wide support in the black community and among more liberal whites.  In 1895 he was invited to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, where he advocated that African Americans could attain their constitutional rights through their own economic and moral advancement by becoming efficient at practical skills rather than pursuing legal and political means for collective advancement.  He also advanced the idea that African Americans should “compromise” and acquiesce to segregation, a position that gained him the title “The Great Accommodator.” 

Across the country African-Americans and whites viewed Washington’s Atlanta address as a “revolutionary moment”.  Initially W. E. B. Du Bois supported him, but they grew apart as Du Bois sought a more assertive approach.  After their falling out, Du Bois and his supporters referred to Washington's speech as the "Atlanta Compromise" to express their criticism that Washington was too accommodating to white interests.  Although Washington never publicly condemned forced segregation, Jim Crow laws, or lynching, he contributed substantial funds to challenge legal cases.  

He was on close terms with national republican leaders, and was often asked for political advice by presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.  Washington's work on education helped him enlist moral and substantial financial support of many major white philanthropists.  He became friends with  Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers; Sears, Roebuck and Company President Julius Rosenwald; and George Eastman, inventor, founder of Kodak.                                                             These individuals and many other wealthy men and women funded his causes, including Hampton and Tuskegee institutes.  Washington was seen as a popular spokesman for African-American citizens, representing the last generation of black leaders born into slavery.  In addition to his contributions in education, he wrote 14 books; his autobiography, Up From Slavery, first published in 1901, is still widely read today.  His work greatly helped blacks to achieve higher education, financial power and understanding of the U.S. legal system.  This contributed to them attaining the skills to create and support the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, leading to the passage of important federal civil rights laws.

Despite his travels and widespread work, Washington remained as principal of Tuskegee, the busy schedules affected Washington's health.  He collapsed in New York City and was brought home to Tuskegee, where he died on 14 November 1915, at the age of 59.  He was buried on the campus of Tuskegee University near the Chapel. At the time of his death Tuskegee University’s endowment exceeded $1.5 million.

"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.  In an effort to inspire the "commercial, agricultural, educational, and industrial advancement" of African Americans, Washington founded the National Negro Business League (NNBL) in 1900.

When Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller and had a major impact on the African American community, its friends and allies. One of the results was a dinner invitation to the White House in 1901 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

For his contributions to American society, Washington was granted an honorary master's degree from Harvard University in 1896 and an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth College in 1901.

As the guest of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901, Washington, was the first African American ever invited to the White House.  In 1934 Robert Russa Moton, Washington's successor as president of Tuskegee University, arranged an air tour for two African American aviators, afterward he had the plane named the Booker T. Washington.

On 7 April 1940, Washington became the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.  He was honoured on the first coin to feature an African American, the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar, 1946 to 1951.  He was also depicted on a U.S. Half Dollar from 1951–1954.  

In 1942, the Liberty Ship Booker T. Washington was named in his honour, the first major ocean going vessel to be named after an African American. On April 5, 1956, the house where he was born in Franklin County, Virginia, was designated as the Booker T. Washington National Monument.  

A state park in Chattanooga, Tennessee was named in his honour, as was a bridge spanning the Hampton River adjacent to his alma mater, Hampton University.

In 1984 Hampton University dedicated a Booker T. Washington Memorial on campus near the historic Emancipation Oak, establishing, in the words of the University, "a relationship between one of America's great educators and social activists, and the symbol of Black achievement in education."

Numerous high schools, middle schools and elementary schools across the United States have been named after Booker T. Washington.  At the centre of the campus at Tuskegee University, the Booker T. Washington Monument, called "Lifting the Veil," was dedicated in 1922.  The inscription at its base reads: "He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry."

On October 19, 2009, West Virginia State University dedicated a monument to the memory of noted African American educator and statesman Booker T. Washington.  The monument also honours the families of African ancestry who lived in Old Malden in the early 20th Century and who knew and encouraged Booker T. Washington.