Born a slave on a Southern plantation, he rose to become one of the most highly respected men of his day, and one of the most highly regarded educators of all time. As founder, first teacher, and president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he did more than any person of his time to help his race overcome the devastating effects of
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."
Booker T. Washington, the founder and head of the famous Tuskegee Institute, who received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Harvard University, was once in slavery.
When as a youth he presented himself at Hampton seeking admission as a student, he was so unpromising that for a time he was in danger of rejection. But he passed a successful examination in the following manner:
After he had been waiting several hours, and other boys had been admitted in preference to him, the head teacher said to him: “The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take a broom and sweep it.”
Booker swept the recitation room three times. Then he dusted it four times—all the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table and desk. Besides, he moved every piece of furniture and cleaned carefully every closet and corner in the room. When he was through he reported to the head teacher.
She was a “Yankee” woman, who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets. Then she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked,
“I guess you will do to enter this institution.”
He struggled to educate himself, to find an identity—and a name. This is the story he tells:
“From the...
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