Booker worked with his step-father in the local salt mine to provide for his family. Washington.įollowing the start of the Civil War in 1861, Fergusson fled north, to Malden, West Virginia, where Booker, his mother, and step-brothers soon joined. Much later in life he found out his mother gave him the name Taliaferro. It wasn’t until his mother married Washington Fergusson that Booker took on a second name. He only knew that he was a white man, possibly his mother Jane’s master, or an owner of a neighboring plantation. However, along with these accomplishments came significant controversy stemming from what he believed was the best way for African Americans to advance in America.īooker never met his father. Throughout the course of his life, he worked his way through an education, established one of the most prestigious African American educational institutions in the country, and even became an advisor on racial issues to both President Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Washington was freed at 9 years old after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, going on to become one of the most influential, yet controversial African Americans in history.Īfter his newfound freedom, Booker was determined to learn and rise from the shadow of his family’s former oppression. Washingtonīorn a slave in Hales Ford, Virginia in 1856, Booker T. “I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” -Booker T.
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