There are people whose abilities and energy take them far past any limitations life tries to place on them. Booker T. Washington was one of those people. He rose up from slavery and illiteracy to become the foremost educator and leader of black Americans at the turn of the century.
Childhood
His childhood was one of privation, poverty, slavery and back-breaking work. Born in 1856, he was from birth the property of James Burroughs of Virginia. Not much is known of his father - even by Washington himself. His mother, Jane, raised him, and he was put to work as early as possible. Since it was illegal for a slave to learn to read and write Washington received no education.
On September 22, 1862 Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation, but of course it could not be enforced until the end of the Civil War in 1865. The former slaves were at first jubilant about being free but it quickly became apparent that there was no place for most of them to go. Washington's step-father was very fortunate because he found work packing salt in Malden, West Virginia. Jane moved herself and her children to join her husband. The nine-year old Washington spent long, exhausting days packing salt. 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 and the institution he created were to become the one great influence in Washington's life. Armstrong believed in work, study, hygiene, morality, self-discipline and self-reliance - in large amounts. It was not a place for slackers. 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. Later, when Washington developed the Tuskegee Institute it emphasized these same qualities and convictions.
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