Booker T. Washington was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia in 1856.

At age 16, he left his job as a salt miner in West Virginia and walked 500 miles to Hampton, Virginia, where he was able to convince the administrators of the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) to admit him as a student. Arriving with only fifty cents in his pocket, he worked as the school janitor to pay his way through school, ultimately graduating in 1875. Having distinguished himself as a student, Washington joined the faculty upon his graduation and, a few years later, left to help found Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Along with the school’s first students, he literally built what would become one of the country’s most important educational institutions. He dedicated his life to promoting the benefits of education and to improving educational opportunities for African Americans.

His autobiography Up From Slavery was a best-seller and he became one of the most famous and admired men in America.

Booker T. Washington died on November 14, 1915, one hundred eight years ago today.

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”

“Nothing ever comes to one that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”

“I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.”

“There is as much dignity in tilling a field as there is in writing a poem.”