Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington (c. 1856–1915) was born into slavery in Franklin County, Virginia, educated himself at the Hampton Institute, and in 1881 became the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, which he built into the best-known Black institution in the country. His “Atlanta Compromise” address of 1895 made him the most prominent Black leader of his generation; Up from Slavery (1901) is his autobiography.