Heroes In Black Skins

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, orator, author and leader of the African-American community. He was freed from slavery at the age of nine, and after working at several menial jobs in West Virginia, he earned his way through an education at Hampton Institute and Wayland Seminary. Upon recommendation of Hampton founder Sam Armstrong, as a young man, he was appointed as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute, then a teachers' college for blacks. Washington filled this role from the opening of the school in 1881 until his death in 1915. - Wikipedia