Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Washington, Booker Taliaferro

WASHINGTON, BOOKER TALIAFERRO, an American educator; born a slave in Hale's Ford, Va., about 1859. After the Civil War he removed with his mother to West Virginia, where he worked in the mines, attending school in the winter. In 1875 he was graduated with honors at the Hampton Institute, Va.; was a teacher there till in 1881, when he was elected by the State authorities of Alabama principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which he organized and built up. He received the degree of A. M. from Harvard University in 1896; was a speaker on educational and racial subjects, and wrote: “Sowing and Reaping” (1900); “Up From Slavery” (1901); “The Negro in Business” (1907); “The Story of the Negro” (1909); “The Man Farthest Down” (1912). He died in 1915.