Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in Virginia. After emancipation he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines as a boy, then made his way some 500 miles, much of it on foot, to Hampton Institute to get an education. In 1881, aged 25, he became the first head of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, starting in a borrowed church building. His students made the bricks and built the campus themselves. By his death it had over 1,500 students.
Booker T. Washington
Educator Born into Slavery
EXTRA-ORDINARY TRAIT
DETERMINATION
JFDI PILLAR
F — FOCUS
COUNTRY & REGION
USA (Americas)
LIFESPAN
1856 – 1915
GENDER
Man
EDITION
No.031
✦ DEFINING MOMENT
Sleeves rolled, laying bricks with his students at Tuskegee.
✦ ARCHIVAL DOSSIER
The Story
✦ VERIFIED QUOTE
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overome...”
✦ DID YOU KNOW?
In 1901 he became the first African American invited to dine at the White House.
✦ YOUR TURN
Which obstacles you've overcome count for more than your job title?