Born in 1856, Booker T. Washington’s childhood was one of privation, poverty, slavery and back-breaking work. He rose up from slavery and illiteracy to become the foremost educator and leader of black Americans at the turn of the century.

Since it was illegal for a slave to learn to read and write Washington received no education. Like many blacks after Emancipation, Washington wanted an education. So despite the exhausting days, he used his free time to go to school. But it was not enough. When he was 16 he decided that he wanted to go to Hampton Institute in Virginia. He did not know if he could get in, and if he got in he didn't know how he was going to pay for it, but in 1872 he showed up on their doorstep flat broke and hungry. Hampton Institute was started and run by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong. Armstrong's purpose was to train black teachers, but he believed every student should have a trade as well. Washington's trade was being a janitor. After graduation Washington became a teacher in Tinkersville, West Virginia.  In 1879 Armstrong asked him to return to Hampton Institute as a teacher. Washington did so, and then in 1881 Armstrong recommended him as the principal of a new school called Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was a humble beginning, but under Washington's care both the school and Washington grew to be world famous.

One of his main problems was always finding enough money. He received a lot of money from white northerners who were impressed with the work he was doing and his non-threatening racial views. It was these non-threatening racial views that gave Washington the appellation "The Great Accomodater". In 1895, Washington was asked to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition, an unprecedented honor for an African American. His Atlanta Compromise speech explained his major thesis, that blacks could secure their constitutional rights through their own economic and moral advancement rather than through legal and political changes. Although his conciliatory stand angered some blacks who feared it would encourage the foes of equal rights, whites approved of his views. Thus his major achievement was to win over diverse elements among southern whites, without whose support the programs he envisioned and brought into being would have been impossible.

In 1901 he wrote a bestseller called Up From Slavery - his autobiography. He also became an advisor to the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Eventually Washington's leadership of blacks began to decline. It became apparent that the white people that had gained control of Southern institutions after Reconstruction did not ever want the civil and political status of blacks to improve - regardless of how hard they worked or how much character they had. They passed laws to keep them from voting and to keep them from mixing with whites in schools, stores and restaurants. Many blacks came to believe that a more forceful, demanding approach was needed. They turned to the leadership of William Monroe Trotter, W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP.  Booker T. Washington died November 14, 1915.