The Inspirational Life of Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington in his Tuskegee Office

The following is Mr. Palmer's address to middle school students Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Over the Christmas break, I took a short drive up the road to a practically deserted Tuskegee University.  I can’t begin to describe the profound difference between the city of Tuskegee and the university itself.  They are basically two different worlds.  One is the picture of blight and poverty, the other, a beautiful college campus.

Known in its early days as the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and more famously Tuskegee Institute, the independent school of 2,500 students situated in Macon County enjoys a tremendous reputation, especially among historically black colleges and universities.  That long-standing reputation can be traced back to Tuskegee’s first president, Booker T. Washington, and the ideals he embodied – ideals that emphasized hard work, personal responsibility, a belief in and dedication to God, and the very highest of moral and academic standards.

My vacation reading brought me to the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site on a beautiful, cool day just before Christmas.  I wanted to see the student-constructed buildings about which I had read, and I wanted to walk the campus paths that this great educator and American walked when he served as an educational leader so long ago.

I highly recommend to each of you the two books that inspired me to make my trip: Up From Slavery, and Character Building.  Both were written by Booker T. Washington around 1901, and both are well worth your time.

Booker T. Washington addressing
a white audience in Carnegie Hall.
Mark Twain can be seen in the
background.

In Up From Slavery, Dr. Washington describes his life as a slave, as well as his steadfast pursuit of a top-notch education following the emancipation of slaves at the end of the Civil War.  He tells of the arduous journey to Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, where a young black man could gain the education needed to make a living at doing something besides working with his hands.  The book is filled with stories of sleeping under bridges, in pup tents, and of working late into the night as a janitor to earn the money necessary to pay his tuition and board at Hampton.  It also describes his meteoric rise to a position of prominence and respect by white and black alike.  The central theme is hard work, and the ability to overcome odds that you and I will never see.

Character Building is different in many ways.  This little gem is a collection of Sunday evening Chapel talks to the student body of Tuskegee Institute – much as I am doing now.  The thrust of the book is very simply how to live a life of character, and those ideals never go out of style.

Buildings at Tuskegee were constructed by students
with bricks and nails made at the school.

Both of these fine books are relatively short and easy to understand, and may be found in our library.  In order to get the most out of them, you have to keep in mind that they were written over a hundred years ago.  Much has changed since then, especially with respect to race relations.  But what hasn’t changed is the value of hard work, the importance of a good education, and the fact that, in the end, your character counts most of all.