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Booker T Washington

He was an American educator, author, orator, and a political leader. Was born a slave but was freed after the emancipation. His family was too poor to allow Booker to go to school on a regular basis. He started to work at the age of nine years. Even though he was working he still had the thought of getting a higher education in mind. He later enrolled at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. He worked as a janitor to pay all the expenses. He graduated in 1875, and taught children at a day school, and adults at night. He went on to receive honorary degrees from Harvard University and Dartmouth College. He is an African American man who would have been biased towards African Americans. He became the first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Booker was the spoke on behalf of blacks living in the south. He may be also biased towards the hard working people in the country; he worked hard all his life and had to go through many struggles. He may have been motivated to make life easier for blacks, and hard working Americans. Booker would lead the way for a younger generation of blacks that would no longer accept white supremacy under the leadership of Du Bois and others.

Booker wanted to up rise the black race from poverty. To do that the black race would need jobs that would bring enough income to support their families. Heading into the turn of the Century the blacks would have to compete with the whites for industrial jobs. One problem was that the blacks had no background with crafts and industry skills. Booker believed that the best interests of black people in the post-Reconstruction era could be reached through education in the crafts and industrial skills. One area blacks were familiar with was farming. They had many farm skills from slavery over the years. With that in mind Booker wanted blacks to cultivate their farming skills to attain economic security.

Booker wanted Blacks to accept segregation and discrimination, but he knew that their hard work for wealth and culture would soon win respect and acceptance of the white people. This would break down the barriers between the two races and lead to equal citizenship for blacks in the end. Washington accepted disfranchisement and social segregation as long as whites would allow black economic progress, educational opportunity, and justice in the courts. He started with an empty building, he won the trust of white Southerners and Northern philanthropists to make a model school of industrial education. He reassured whites that nothing in his educational program challenged white supremacy or offered economic competition with whites.

Works Cited:

Britannica.com. "Booker T. Washington Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography.com." //Famous Biographies & TV Shows - Biography.com//. Biography.com, 1994-2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. .

Gale. "Gale - Free Resources - Black History - Biographies - Booker Taliaferro Washington." //Gale - Home//. Cengage Learning. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. .

Wormser, Richard. "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Jim Crow Stories . Booker T. Washington | PBS." //PBS: Public Broadcasting Service//. PBS. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. .