←Author Index: Wa | Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856–1915) |
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an African-American political leader, educator and author. He was one of the dominant figures in African-American history from 1890 to 1915.
He was born into slavery at the community of Hale's Ford in Franklin County, Virginia. As a young man he made his way east from West Virginia to obtain schooling at Hampton in eastern Virginia at a school established to train teachers. In his later years, Dr. Washington became a leading educator and was a prominent and popular spokesperson for African American citizens of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Although labeled by some activists as an "accommodator", his work cooperating with white people and enlisting the support of wealthy philanthropists helped raise funds to establish and operate dozens of small community schools and institutions of higher education for the betterment of black persons throughout the south. Within the context of the times he did much to improve the friendship and working relationship between the races. |

Works
- The Atlanta Compromise, 1895.
Audio recording of the speech: Image:Booker T. Washington, Speech, 1895.ogg
- The Awakening of the Negro
- The Case of the Negro
- Telegram from President Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in “Letters and Telegrams received” from Banquet to the Honorable Carl Schurz, Delmonico's Restaurant, New York City, March 2, 1899.
- The Negro Problem (Book with collection of essays, 1903)
- Industrial Education for the Negro (Washington's essay in The Negro Problem, 1903)
- “ADDRESS OF DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON” from New York Committee of the Carl Schurz Memorial, Addresses in Memory of Carl Schurz, Carnegie Hall, November 21, 1906.
- Up From Slavery
Works about Washington
- W.E.B. DuBois, “III. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” from The Souls of Black Folk
- Elbert Hubbard, “Booker T. Washington,” from Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers
- Booker T. Washington, a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar, Representative American Negroes has a section on Washington.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro,” Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1889.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro,” The New International Encyclopædia. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1905.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro” in Encyclopædia Britannica, (11th ed.), 1911.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro,” The New Student's Reference Work, Chicago: F.E. Compton and Co., 1914.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro” in The Encyclopedia Americana. New York, 1920.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro,” Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Co., 1921.
- “Washington, Booker Taliaferro,” Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.), 1922.
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This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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