Tuskegee University
The Tuskegee University is one of the most famous historical African American educational institutions in the United States. It is resident in the city of Tuskegee, Alabama, and exists to this day. Now she is open to all population groups.
History
It was in 1880 by Lewis Adams, a former slave who had himself several languages, reading and writing are taught and George Campbell, a former slaveholder, was founded. Adams was an excellent tinsmith, saddlers and shoemakers, and has been recognized as a prominent leader in the African American community of Macon County, Alabama. For this reason, asked him WF Foster, a white candidate for the State Senate, what he wanted in return for securing the votes of blacks. Adams has asked that an educational institution should be established for blacks. After Foster won the election in 1880, was awarded the Tuskegee place $ 2,000 (per year) from the general budget for a Negro Normal School in Tuskegee (teacher training center ) in Macon County allocated.
Lewis Adams bought a "good" horse, a used Lumberjack wagon, a plow, saddlery and horse feed for the school.
The horse enabled the students to start planting cabbages, watermelon, corn, sweet potatoes and sorghum ... All of the industries at Tuskegee have been started in natural and logical order growing out of the needs of a community settlement. We started with farming Because we wanted something to eat.
- Translation:
The horse made it possible for students to start with the plants of cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes and corn and sorghum. All these activities were done in a natural and logical order that grew out of the need of a community. We started with agriculture, because we wanted something to eat.
Lewis Adams, Thomas Dryer, and MB Swanson formed the school board. The school was officially opened in a rented church of the small room in Tuskegee on July 4, 1881. As Head of Training Board Booker T. Washington had been able to win, also a former slave, then a 25 - year-old teacher at Hampton Institute in Virginia. He remained headmaster from 1881 until his untimely death in 1915 at the age of 59 years. He modeled Tuskegee according to his own experience at the Hampton Institute. In these 34 years, he led the Tuskegee Institute to national importance. In 1882, he was able with the help of wealthy supporters to acquire a former plantation land on which the future University buildings were mainly built by the students in -house operation, and on which the University is home to this day.
Washington was able to win some key employees, which then opened its own faculties, so the botanist George Washington Carver, Robert Robinson Taylor, the first black architect of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and David A. Williston, one of the first African - American Landschaftsarchikten. This was also true for the artisanal sector.
1892 was the Negro Normal School for permission to change its name to Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and take independent from the state university system. BT Washington was now a celebrity as a preacher and as a leading spokesman for the African Americans in the United States. He had a network of wealthy sponsors brought together, comprised the names such as Andrew Carnegie, Collis P. Huntington, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Huttleston Rogers (founder of Standard Oil ). Another prominent supporter of the university was Julius Rosenwald, the son of Jewish immigrants, self-made man, and now CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago. He had been adopted by other Jewish friends to the concerns of African Americans, especially in the southern states. BT Washington and Rosenwald initiated the construction of over 5,000 schools for African American children in the rural South of the United States, for which they mustered up each half of the funds, and the competent local authority had to pay the other half. BT Washington died of a heart attack in 1915, leaving behind a thriving university with a handsome endowment of over 1.5 million dollars.
BT Washington's successor as president were:
- Robert R. Moton, the Institute for over 20 years
- 1935 Dr. Frederick D. Patterson
- 1953 Dr. Luther H. Foster
World War II
Until the beginning of World War II African-Americans were denied service in the U.S. Air Force United States Army Air Forces. Here was the racial segregation, but in tougher levels than in other parts of the U.S. Army. In the struggle for the emancipation of African Americans and their civil rights, the Roosevelt administration was after massive protests against this discrimination in 1941 on creating a training center for black fighter pilot at the Tuskegee Institute. A Trainingsschwadron the U.S. Air Force was part of the Institute, and housed at the nearby airfield Moton ( about four miles from the university ). The approximately 1,000 black pilots trained here ( to around 15,000 ground staff were not trained ) became known as the Tuskegee Airmen who achieved numerous victories and victories in World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Airfield, named after Robert R. Moton, the successor to BT Washington, was founded in 1998 and includes a museum with numerous exhibits on the history of black aviators.
Tuskegee acquired university status in 1985. Nowadays it offers bachelor's, master's and professional degree programs for more than 3,000 students. She still has a strong focus on the relationship between education and the labor force, which is now called " technical area ". It was the first black college that was designated as a Registered National Historic Landmark (1966 ) and is the only black college as a National Historic Site.