Booker T. Washington is our first featured biography for Black History Month 2011.
It makes sense: he was a teacher. Booker T. Washington began running the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1881, and urged African-Americans to better themselves by getting an education and learning a trade.
This photo shows Booker T. Washington with a group of “distinguished guests” about 1906. It’s a distinguished group indeed: at far right is Charles Eliot, who was president of Harvard University for 50 years (1869-1909) and remains the school’s longest-lasting president. Washington himself remained head of the Tuskegee Institute until 1915.
See our full Booker T. Washington biography >>