Tuskegee Institute: Booker T. Washington's School, Built by Its Students

The Tuskegee campus. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama, opened in 1881 to educate formerly enslaved people and became known for its training in industrial trades, which improved many African Americans' economic prospects. The Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site preserves it as a symbol of African American achievement and of Booker T. Washington's legacy.

A political bargain

In 1880, before an Alabama Senate election, State Senator W. F. Foster made a deal with Lewis Adams, a formerly enslaved man who dreamed of a school for his people. Adams would rally Black voters in Macon County for Foster; in return, Foster would push a bill for a "Normal School for Colored Teachers" in Tuskegee. Foster won, kept his word and, with Representative Arthur L. Brooks, got the legislature to authorize the school.

A hard start

• Money: the legislature gave $2,000 for teachers' salaries.
• Nothing else: no equipment and no buildings. Classes met in a shanty at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
• Its principal: Adams, helped by the school commissioner George Campbell, a former slaveholder, hired Booker Taliaferro Washington.

Learning by building

Washington brought the industrial and vocational training of his own school, the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, to teach students "to live on the farm, off the farm." Practical trades and better farming skills, he believed, would lift African Americans' economic conditions.

Students learned self-sufficiency: to grow their own food, to make bricks, and to raise buildings designed by the faculty. Through carpentry, bricklaying, printing and agriculture, they built their own campus, which grew from the church shanty to 2,300 acres of farmland and student-built halls — and, Washington believed, learned the dignity of hard work.

George Washington Carver (front row, center) with Tuskegee faculty. Library of Congress.

George Washington Carver

Washington recruited George Washington Carver, who, like him, had been enslaved and believed in practical education. A botanist and former professor of agriculture at Iowa State College, Carver joined in 1896 to head the agriculture department. He taught progressive farming methods, and taught farmers and their wives about nutrition, home building, food preservation and hygiene.

In 1906 Carver and Washington started the Movable School for people who could not come to Tuskegee. Carver designed the Jesup Wagon, which carried machinery and supplies to train Black farmers at their own homes.

Growth and fame

Washington became known nationally as a leader of his people. White businessmen invested in the school, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. When Washington died in 1915, Tuskegee had grown from a first class of 30 students to 1,537, and offered 30 trades.

The Tuskegee Airmen: Black Americans had been kept out of military flying. In 1941 Tuskegee Institute began training students in combat aviation — the "Tuskegee Experiment" — producing pilots, navigators and bombardiers. By the end of World War II the Tuskegee Airmen were among the most respected fighters in the U.S. military. Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, at Moton Field, honors them.

Visiting

Tuskegee is still a working university. Visitors can walk the grounds and see surviving buildings, including The Oaks, Washington's home, built by the first students. It and other buildings were designed by Robert R. Taylor, the first African American graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and built by students. Tuskegee University students usually lead the campus tours.

• Where: 1212 W. Montgomery Rd., Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
• When: daily, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Check the park's website or call 334-727-3200 before you go.
• Cost: free.

Recognition

• National Historic Landmark: Tuskegee Institute is one.
• Historic American Buildings Survey: the NPS survey has documented the Carver Museum, The Oaks, Grey Columns and the Institute.
• Civil rights: in 2022 it joined the NPS African American Civil Rights Network.
• Online: the NPS virtual exhibit Legends of Tuskegee.

Sources

Based on "Alabama: Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source places Tuskegee in "Mason County"; it is in Macon County.