Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on April 5, 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia near a cross-roads post-office called Hale's Ford. He was an American educator and a black leader. When Booker was a child he worked in coal mines for nine months a year and spent the other three attending school. In 1875 he graduated after working his way through Hampton Institute. In 1881 he became the first president of Tuskegee Institute, a trade school for blacks that live …showed first 75 words of 373 total…

…showed last 75 words of 373 total…greatest surprise was the letter he received from Harvard University on May 28, 1896 inviting him to the approaching Commencement, an honorary degree on June 24. In the summer of 1900 with the assistance of Mr. T. Thomas Fortune he organized the National Negro Business League which brought together lots of colored men engaged in many lines of business from different parts of the United States. Booker died on November 14, 1915 six years after Booker died Miss Margaret died in 1925.