In Chap­ter Sev­en­teen, titled “Book­er T. Wash­ing­ton,” we learn about the ear­ly life of Book­er T. Wash­ing­ton, who was born into slav­ery in Vir­ginia in 1856, with­out a last name, as his moth­er was enslaved and his father was unknown. Despite his desire for edu­ca­tion, he was barred from attend­ing school and instead watched from out­side a one-room school­house where the daugh­ters of his enslavers learned. After the Civ­il War, when his moth­er was eman­ci­pat­ed, pover­ty pre­vent­ed them from access­ing prop­er edu­ca­tion, lead­ing them to West Vir­ginia. There, Book­er worked in a salt fac­to­ry under his step­fa­ther, Wash Fer­gu­son, who kept his wages. He learned to read by iden­ti­fy­ing the num­ber “18” on the bar­rels he worked with, dri­ving his desire for for­mal edu­ca­tion.

At the age of nine and against his step­fa­ther’s wish­es, Wash­ing­ton final­ly enrolled in school, adopt­ing the last name “Wash­ing­ton.” By six­teen, after var­i­ous jobs, he aimed to attend a school for Black Amer­i­cans in Vir­ginia. He saved mon­ey and trav­eled to the Hamp­ton Indus­tri­al and Nor­mal School, where he impressed the admis­sions staff with his dili­gence while clean­ing a class­room. This led to his accep­tance and a jan­i­to­r­i­al posi­tion to cov­er tuition.

Found­ed by Samuel Arm­strong, the school aimed to pro­vide edu­ca­tion for African Amer­i­cans post-Civ­il War. Arm­strong believed in voca­tion­al edu­ca­tion and felt it was crit­i­cal for the for­mer­ly enslaved to receive guid­ance. Wash­ing­ton admired Arm­strong, who had com­plex views; he sup­port­ed edu­ca­tion but opposed Black vot­ing rights, think­ing the com­mu­ni­ty would ben­e­fit more from moral guid­ance first.

In 1881, Wash­ing­ton moved to Tuskegee, Alaba­ma, to estab­lish a school with min­i­mal finan­cial sup­port from the state, prompt­ing him to fundraise exten­sive­ly. His auto­bi­og­ra­phy, “Up from Slav­ery,” gar­nered atten­tion and led to sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from phil­an­thropist Julius Rosen­wald. Despite fac­ing racial vio­lence, Wash­ing­ton advo­cat­ed for Black empow­er­ment through edu­ca­tion.

The part­ner­ship between Wash­ing­ton and Rosen­wald result­ed in the cre­ation of near­ly five thou­sand schools across the U.S., pro­vid­ing essen­tial facil­i­ties and resources for African Amer­i­can chil­dren, there­by dra­mat­i­cal­ly impact­ing edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment. Their ini­tia­tive was piv­otal, empha­siz­ing com­mu­ni­ty invest­ment in edu­ca­tion while adapt­ing to the exist­ing racial struc­tures. Through this effort, Wash­ing­ton and Rosen­wald not only edu­cat­ed indi­vid­ual chil­dren but laid a foun­da­tion for future gen­er­a­tions of lead­ers, pro­found­ly influ­enc­ing civ­il rights and social progress in Amer­i­ca .