Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-11-15
B. 7. WASHINGTON
DIES SUDDENLY
[Continued from First Pagel

I w
left New York for fuskegee at 4
| o'clock Friday afternoon. He reached
| home Saturday midnight and died at
4:4O O'Clock yesterday morning. His
last public appearance was at the Ma
tional Conference of Congregational
Churches, in New York, where he de-
livered a lecture October 25.
A widow, three children and four
grandchildren survive. John II. Wash
1ngton, brother, is superintendent of
Industries at Tuskegee Institute
The funeral will be heldl at Tuske-
gee Institute Wednesday morning at
10 o'clock.
Knew Little of Antecedents
Booker Taliafero Washington was a
man of unusual strength and a great
capacity for work. He confessed that
he knew nothing of his antecedents,
save that his mother was a slave, and
he was born in Slavedom. Washington
wasn't sure of the exact date of his
birth. He knew that it was either in
| 1858 or 1859, in Franklin county, Vir-
ginia. His father he never knew. His
mother was the property, before
emancipation of a Taliafero, and she
! took that name. She had called her
son Booker in his youth. The name
of Washington he took for himself
when he got the chance to attend
| something like a school while he
| worked in salt furnace in West Vir-
ginia.
Booker began working at the fur
| mace from a o'clock in the morning
until after dusk settled down. He
managed to get few hours in the
morning to attend a school. 1t was
| then that he took the name of Wash
| lnRtOn. when forced m enroll Ondar
some title.
Later he was engaged as house
servant and then he had a new chance
to study at intervals. All the while he
saved, and even borrowed and begged,
until he felt he had money enough to
reach Hampton Institute, 500 miles
away.
Arriving at Richmond, penniless
and 80 miles from his destination, he
got work along the James River docks.
He again saved some money and
reached Hampton with so cents in
his pocket: There he swept and busted
rooms and soon the teachers were at
tracted by his earnestness
| No man knew the troubles of the
reconstruction period better than
Booker t. Washington. and he was
| always frank to discuss them. 1t was
his very frankness as to the shortcom-
| ings of his race that earned for Wash
I
from both whites and negroes. Wash
ington said that the sight of ignorant
negroes in the pulpits and in the pub
lie offices at that time, finally spurred
him. on to educate himself so that he
could teach others. He saw that his
race must be taught to work.
Becomes a Teacher
The first success of Washington's
| hn 1at Ntrha hr
made a teacher at Hampton. Then
came a greater one. The white peo-
pie of the BLACK Belt in Alabama
| had decided that the negro needed
educating and sent to Hampton for a
man to take charge. The heads of the
pioneer Virginia institution picked out
the only man who could assume the
responsibilities of that task. He was
! Booker T. " hington.
| Washington began in Tuskegee in
1881 with a small county appropria-
ton, a shanty and an abandoned
church. His first aids were an ex-
Shareholder and an eX-slave The first
recitation room was made from an ole
henhouse on the place. and Washing.
ton told often with a chuckle how ar
old darky he had enlisted to help hin
clear out the place, remarked that
he never before had cleared out 9
henhouse in broad daylight"
At the end of the first year Wash.
ington had thirty pupils at the school
He had to hunt up" his people. His
greatest opposition came from his own
race. They looked upon education as
a means of gaining a living without
working. He then hit upon his great
plan of vocational education and de-
cided to teach his race how to work
as well as read. He needed a farm
and finally bought an abandoned plan
tation for $500, paying down $3.50
more money than he had ever seen
before.
This came from his old teacher
General j. F. B. Marshall, st Hamp-
ton Institute. In three months he had
paid off that $3.50; the balance he
owed, and secured an additional $500
with which he bought 100 additional
acres of land.