Professor Booker T. Washington, whose aims, exertions and success tends
to advance his race along the same lines as other races, is meeting with
tremendous results, bringing about a more decided respect for the
intelligence of Colored Americans.
Mr. Washington, born in 1857, has, by grit and determination, reached
the leadership of his race, and become one of the great men of the
nation.
After a life spent in struggles to acquire an education, he was
recognized as a great teacher, and called upon to take charge of a
normal school at Tuskegee, Alabama, established by the legislature. He
organized the school on July 4th, the anniversary of American
Independence, an idea that denotes the character of the man.
Since that period, the widely known Tuskegee Institute has made such
progress that, today, the site of the institution is a city of itself.
Mr. Washington worked his way to pay for his education at the Hampton
Institute, Hampton, Virginia. What he did and how he did it is best
described by himself in giving his experiences at Hampton: