LETTER SIGNED BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Typed letter signed by Booker T. Washington as president of The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Tuskegee, Alabama, 27 June 1912. 1 page, approx. 8 3/4 x 7 1/2 in., on Tuskegee Institute printed letterhead. 

A letter from Booker T. Washington to one of his employees, W.T. Shehee, at The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, later known as Tuskegee University. In the letter, Washington is responding to Shehee's request for a raise in pay, writing that he would "receive at the beginning of the next school year some increase in your salary." 

Born enslaved, Washington (1856-1915) became a freedman at nine years old under the Emancipation Proclamation when U.S. troops occupied his home region. Throughout his young adulthood, Washington worked hard to put his way through school, eventually graduating from the Hampton Institute and Wayland Seminary. 

Through connections at the Hampton Institute, Washington was recommended to lead the new Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. The school opened as just a single-room building on 4 July 1881. Washington worked in the next year to expand the school, where Black students were taught not only a typical education but also trade skills — these students would lay bricks, construct classrooms, grow crops and raise livestock in addition to learning academics. He served as the school's leader for more than 30 years, continuing to broaden the curriculum, facilities and minds of every student. 

While gaining prominence as the leader of the Tuskegee Institute, Washington was also gaining national notoriety, primarily due to his Atlanta Address of 1895. Washington proposed in his address that Black Southerners should "go slow" rather than rush into equality. He believed that if these African Americans accepted segregation and temporarily refrained from campaigning for equal rights, they would receive basic legal protections, as well as access to property ownership, employment and education. Needless to say, this address received mixed reviews from Black Americans; it is recorded that all the white attendees gave Washington a standing ovation following the speech. 

At the turn of the century, Washington helped found the National Negro Business League. He also wrote his autobiography, Up From Slavery, the same year he dined with President Theodore Roosevelt, the first time a Black person publicly met the president on equal terms. Although his legacy may have been controversial, Washington no doubt had a significant impact on American civil rights, helping to lead the way to equality. 

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