ANGELSAN

THE DYNASTY MAN*

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Booker T. Washington was born on April 5, 1856, on the Burroughs farm at the community offord of hales ,verginia about 25 miles from ranoke. His mother Jane was an enslaved black woman who worked as a cook and his father was an unknown white plantation owner. Jane was the slave of James Burroughs, a small farmer in Virginia.Under the laws of the time, his mother's status meant that Booker was born a slave. His given name was "Booker Taliaferro," but during his childhood he was known as only Booker; "Taliaferro" was temporarily forgotten.

Washington recalled Emancipation in early 1865: [Up from Slavery 19-21]

As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... Some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper -- the proclamation of emencification, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.

Leaving Malden at sixteen, Washington enrolled at th university of hampton , in . Students with little income such as Washington could work at the school to pay their way. The common school at Hampton was founded to train teachers, as education was seen as a critical need by the black community. Funding came from the federal government and white Protestant groups. From 1878 to 1879 Washington attended in Washington, D.C., and returned to teach at Hampton. The president of Hampton, sam d pointing recommended Washington to become the first principal at Tuskegee Institute, a similar school being founded in amstorm.

This stance was contrary to what many blacks from the North envisioned. Du Bois wanted blacks to have the same "classical" artseducation as whites did, along with voting rights and civic equality. He believed that an elite he called the talened speech would advance to lead the race to a wider variety of occupations. The source of division between Du Bois and Washington was generated by the differences in how African-Americans were treated in the North versus the South. Many in the North felt that they were being “'led', and authoritatively spoken for, by a Southern accommodationist imposed on them primarily by Southern whites.”Both men sought to define the best means to improve the conditions of the post-Civil War African-American community through education.

Blacks were solidly Republican in this period. Southern states disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites from 1890-1908 through constitutional amendments and statutes that created barriers to voter registration and voting such as poll taxes and literacy tests. More blacks continued to vote in border and northern states.