Booker T. Washington
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Booker Taliafero Washington (1856-1915) was a visionary, educator, and leader of the post-Civil War African-American community.
Born into slavery, Washington grew up without an education because it was illegal for slaves to learn how to read.[1] After the Civil War, he began to attend school, and worked as a janitor at the Hampton Institute in order to pay for his education. He later became an instructor at this school, and in 1891, founded the Tuskegee Institute for blacks.[2] In 1895, he gave the famous Atlanta Compromise speech in which he simultaneously exhorted African Americans to work and white employers to hire them.