Tuskegee and Its People

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 - November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community. Booker T. Washington mastered the nuances of the political arena in the late 19th century, which enabled him to manipulate the media, raise money, strategize, network, pressure, reward friends and distribute funds while punishing those who opposed his plans for uplifting blacks. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute, home to scientist George Washington Carver and to World War II's Tuskegee Airmen. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. In his book 1905 book "Tuskegee and Its People" Washington writes: "In the past twenty-four years thousands of the youth of this and other lands have elected to come to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute to secure what they deem the training that would offer them the widest range of usefulness in the activities open to the masses of the Negro people. Their hopes, fears, strength, weaknesses, struggles, and triumphs cannot fail to be of absorbing interest to the great body of American people, more particularly to the student of educational theories and their attendant results. When an institution has, like Tuskegee Institute, reached that stage in its development that its system of instruction has aroused very general discussion, and has given to the world of varied industry an army of workers, numbering not less than 6,000, there is a natural curiosity on the part of the public to learn all that is possible of such an institution, and of the personality and methods of those administering its affairs. They wish to ascertain the actual truth concerning its resources and equipment; they want figures detailing the degree of pecuniary productiveness and moral efficiency attained by those who have received the prescribed training; and they are eager to hear the whole story from the lips of both the instructors and the instructed as to how the recorded results have been accomplished."

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Washington, Booker T.
Published: 11/02/2016
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781539861041
Pages: 226
Weight: 0.68lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.48d