Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 and grew up in Virginia. He was very poor and a slave. After he was freed, he worked for awhile in West Virginia. When he was older, he worked in Hampton, Virginia. He impressed the president of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute so much with his cleaning skills that he let Washington go to school there. He later taught at Hampton Institute and in 1881, he was asked to be the first leader of a new school - Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. For the rest of his life he was an important educator and a leader for blacks in America fighting against segregation. He died on November 14, 1915.