Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington ( born April 5, 1856, on the Burroughs farm, Hale 's Ford, Franklin County, Virginia; † November 14, 1915 in Tuskegee, Alabama) was an American educator, social reformer and Schwarzenrechtler.

Life and work

Education and Teaching

As a slave born on a plantation, his family moved to the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery to Malden, West Virginia, where Washington has at times been engaged in mining and also a school attended. From 1872 to 1875 he attended the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, where he got a job and thus could the school finance charges, and taught after two years, even in Malden, and he eventually study at Wayland Seminary in Washington, DC began. Since 1879, he established an evening school, where he campaigned among other things for the education of Indians.

1881 Washington was at the suggestion of Samuel Chapman Armstrong, founder and director of Hampton Institute and mentor of Washington, as head of a newly established school for blacks in Tuskegee, Alabama, called the. With a provided for the payment of teacher allocation of only $ 2,000 a year, he was able to duplicate, designed by Chapman model and to create a nationally recognized educational institution in which he mediated artisanal and agricultural skills. Over the years, you could get an education in the following occupations at the Tuskegee Institute: iron founder, electricians, painters, plumbers, carpenters, smiths, basket weavers, masons, Wagner and many others. He also founded the National Negro Business League, which campaigned for the career advancement of black citizens. In the year of his death (1915 ) was Tuskegee Institute from 123 buildings on 930 acres of land owned and machinery worth over a million dollars.

For Washington, it was always clear that real education not only could come from books and more meant than memorization. An educated person for him was someone who had the ability to solve problems, who worked disciplined, who led a moral life change and towards society committed felt as character development and self-discovery were possible only through participation in charitable activities. All students of the Tuskegee Institute had in addition to their professional practical and theoretical teaching physical labor, since they this should instill respect for honest work and self-discipline. The entire environment of the students, both inside and outside the school should be designed so that students always have the opportunity to learn. With this setting, Washington was one of the pioneers of modern vocational education.

Position on race and DuBois debate

Washington took the position of a slow progress in terms of race relations. In his famous " Atlanta Compromise, " speech of 1895, he explained his basic positions, after which it was advantageous for blacks in the face of white power position in the south by the U.S. to live in peaceful coexistence with white people and subordinate. Although he called for equal rights, but also of the opinion that blacks should accept their social position for the moment and set the demands for social equality. They should improve their status only through education and economic activity, thereby making it consistent with the time of the whites. Washington was the belief that a training in technical trades would lead to long-term economic independence. Such skills are in high demand in the industry and would help the blacks to better integrate into the society. Through his educational work Washington received great recognition in the black community and was with this attitude acceptable to many whites. He established himself as one of the foremost spokesman for the blacks of his time. The White House saw his ideas even as guidelines for social and economic development of the Black - President Roosevelt received Washington as the first African American to an official meeting at the White House.

More militant black leaders, however, as W.E.B. Du Bois, rejected his attitude as too conciliatory. For DuBois immediate Erlangen was all civil rights, the foundation stone for the emancipation of the blacks. He respected Washington though, but stated that the proposal to initially focus on vocational training, for blacks meant the fall into a permanent status as a social and economic underclass, while section them the way to political influence. Social emancipation was associated for him with the development of personal and cultural values ​​. Mental place physical development would cause black in the end a real say in the U.S. company would get (see also: Niagara Movement). These debates between Washington and DuBois, which partly took place partly in newspapers at the lectern, have had a profound influence on the vocational education in the United States.

Honors

Harvard gave Booker T. Washington in 1896 an honorary master, Dartmouth in 1901 an honorary doctorate; in 1904 he was inducted as an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa.

Booker was an active member and speaker of the Prince Hall Freemasonry.

In 1940 he was featured as the first African American on a U.S. postage stamp. 1945 Booker T. Washington was included in the City Hall of Fame for Great Americans in New York. In April 1956, became a part of the plantation, on the Booker T. Washington came as a slave to the world, a national monument, in April 1966, the Tuskegee Institute for National Historic Landmark.

The U.S. Treasury was half- dollar coins with the portrait of Booker T. Washington out: 18 coin types from 1946 continuously until 1951 with the portrait of Booker T. Washington - the half dollars are different side of the year or by the mints code letters D ( Denver, Colorado) and S ( San Francisco, California). All 18 types were pronounced in the total circulation of 3,091,205 pieces. From 1951 to 1954 continuously came another 12 types of coins with portraits of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver with a total circulation of 2,422,392 pieces out to those on the front of the double portrait, could be seen on the back of a United States map.

See also: Booker T. Washington High School, Booker T. Washington School

Works

• The Future of the American Negro ( 1899)
• Up from Slavery (1901, up from slaves; autobiography )
• Life of Frederick Douglass (1907 )
• The Story of the Negro ( 1909)
• My Larger Education ( 1911).