Person · 1856–1915
Booker T. Washington
The founder of Tuskegee and the most powerful Black leader of his age, whose strategy of accommodation Du Bois would challenge.
A pivotal, debated figure of post-Reconstruction leadership.
Born enslaved, Booker T. Washington built Tuskegee Institute into a center of Black education and became an adviser to presidents. His 1895 "Atlanta Compromise" urged Black Americans to pursue economic self-help and accept segregation for the moment — a stance that made him both immensely influential and sharply contested.