Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was an ex-slave and founder of the Tuskegee Institute--the largest and best supported black college of the time.

Washington believed that blacks could advance faster through hard work than by demanding equality. He believed that the blacks of America should confine themselves to industrial education and manual labor rather than political protest. In return for political docility, however, was that whites not impose barriers on black economic advancement.

Article courtesy of the Buffalo Historical Society