Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was a great influence for the black community. The efforts this man put to become such a wonderful leader were incredible. Booker T. Washington was a man that started up from scratch. He grew up as a Black slave, who did not have much choices in life. He was born in Virginia in 1856, and he had a white father and a black mother. After the Emancipation Proclamation he went to work in a coal mine, while still a child. When Booker was seventeen he went of to Hampton Institute, he worked there as a janitor. He then became a student there. Following all the hard work Booker T. Washington has put in his life he became a very famous speaker on educational subjects.

Booker T. Washington became a very famous speaker he had been invited to eat dinner in the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt. Slowly Booker began to get the respect he deserved. Booker preached that Blacks should accept that they were inferior to whites, he told them that we have to prove to them that we are socially capable of taking care of ourselves. He said the way we do this is make successful businesses we get educated and get into politics. For these beliefs that Booker believed in is why he was called "The Great Compromiser." Many white ex-slave owners began to respect Bookers notions. Not only was he becoming acknowledged by the Blacks but now also by the whites. Booker T. Washington was being secretly funded by great industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. The love approached racism in a nonthreatening way. The only thing that was a problem to him is not all people liked his belief. WEB Du Bois did not like Booker T. Washington's statements. He believed that gave the Ok to continue with racial segregation.

I believe that Booker T Washington was a great leader for the Black community. His intentions were for the better of this country. His belief I think was right. All he was saying is that us blacks can't just