Existing comment:
Booker T. Washington and Distinguished Guests
Faced with the racial hatred, segregation, and disenfranchisement that followed the Civil War, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) contended it was unrealistic to expect African Americans to gain entry into America's white-collar professions. Instead, he believed that if they established themselves as a skilled and indispensable laboring class, racial discrimination would gradually disappear. In 1881 he put this theory to the test as director of the newly created Negro Normal School (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama. As that institution grew, Washington emerged as a leading spokesman for African Americans and worked closely with national leaders, including industrialist-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (pictures to the right of Washington).
Underwood & Underwood, 1906 |