BOOKER TALIAFERRO WASHINGTON April 5, 1856, Hale's Ford, Franklin County, VA -- Nov. 14, 1915, Tuskegee, AL Educator, reformer, principal and guiding force behind Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which he founded in 1881. His concept of practical education was a contribution to the general field of education. Washington is considered the most influential spokesman for black Americans between 1895 and 1915. "From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery."     Author and African American Civil Rights Leader Washington's outstanding contributions to the post civil war collective consciousness include 40 books, that have been widely read and are highly regarded. Among his works we have his autobiography titled "Up From Slavery" (1901), "The Man Farthest Down" (1912), "My Larger Education" (1911), and "Character Building" (1902). Booker spent his first nine years as a slave on the James Burroughs tobacco farm. In 1865, his mother took her children to Malden, West Virginia, to join her husband, who had gone there earlier and found work in the salt mines. At age nine, Washington was put to work packing salt. Between the ages of ten and twelve, he worked in a coal mine. He attended school at night while continuing to work in the mines. In 1871, he went to work as a houseboy for the wife of Gen. Lewis Ruffner, owner of the mines. In 1872, at the age of sixteen, he walked almost 500 miles from his home to Hampton Institute, where he worked in exchange for his expenses. He graduated in 1875. Washington opened his school in an old church with thirty students, but in time the school grew to the famous Tuskegee Institute with over 2,000 in attendance. His work greatly helped blacks to achieve higher education, financial power and understanding of the U.S. legal system. This led to a foundation of the skill set needed to support the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and further adoption of important federal civil rights laws. In the beginning… Among the original group of thirty students with whom Mr. Washington started Tuskegee Institute on an old plantation equipped with a kitchen, a stable, and a hen-house, was a now elderly man who to-day has charge of the spacious and beautiful grounds of the Institute. He was6 approaching middle age when he entered this original Tuskegee class. The following is a paraphrase of his account of the early days of the school: "After we'd been out on the plantation three or four weeks Mr. Washington came into the schoolroom and said: 'To-morrow we're going to have a chopping bee. All of you that have an axe, or can borrow one, must bring it. I will try and provide those of you who cannot furnish an axe. We will dismiss school early to-morrow afternoon and start for the chopping bee.' So we came to school next day with the axes, all of us that could get them; we were all excited and eager for that chopping bee, and we were all discussing what it would be like, because we had never been to one before. So in the afternoon Mr. Washington said it was time for that chopping bee, so he put his axe over his shoulder and led us to the woods and put us to work cutting the trees and clearing the land. He went right in and worked harder and faster and handled his axe better than any of us. After a while we found that a chopping bee, as he called it, was no different from just plain cutting down trees and clearing the land. There wasn't anything new about that—we all had had all we wanted of it. Some of the boys said they didn't come to school to cut down trees and clear land, but they couldn't say they were too good for that kind of work when Mr. Washington himself was at it harder than any of them. So he kept with us for some days till everybody had his idea. Then he went off to do something more important. "Now, in those days he used to go off every Saturday morning and he wouldn't come back till Monday morning. He'd travel all round the country drumming up students for the school and telling the people to send their children. And on Sunday he'd get the preachers to let him get up in their pulpits and tell the people about the school after they had finished preaching. And the preachers would warn their people against him and his school, because they said it wasn't Methodist, and it wasn't Baptist, and it wasn't Presbyterian, and it wasn't Episcopalian, and it wasn't Christian. And they told the people to keep their children away from that Godless man and his school. But when he came along and asked to speak to the people they had to leave him, just as everybody always did—let him do just what he wanted to do. And when they heard him, the people, they didn't pay no attention to the preachers, they just sent their children as fast as ever they could contrive it. rt., Mr. Washington in typical pose speaking to an audience at Shreveport, La. "Now, in those days Mr. Washington didn't have a horse, nor a mule, nor a wagon, and he wanted to cover more country on those trips than he could afoot, so he'd just go out in the middle of the road and when some old black man would come along driving his mule wagon he'd stop him and talk with him, and tell him about the school and what it was going to do for the black folks, and then he'd say: 'Now, Uncle, you can help by bringing your wagon and mule round at nine o'clock Saturday morning for me to go off round the country telling the people about the school. Now, remember, Uncle Jake, please be here promptly at nine,' and the old man would say, 'Yes, boss, I sure will be here!' That was how he did it—when he needed anything he'd go out and put his hand on it. First, he could put his hand on anything he wanted round the town; then, he could put his hand on anything he wanted all over the county; then he could put his hand on anything he wanted all over the State; and then finally they do tell me he could put his hand on anything he wanted away up to New York. -Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization With a Preface by Theodore Roosevelt                                               You know it don't come easy... -The Beatles Booker T. Washington’s Story “I determined when quite a small child that, if I accomplished nothing else in life, I would in some way to get enough education to enable me to read common books and newspapers. Soon after we got settled in some manner in our new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she procured an old copy of ‘Webster’s Blue-back Spelling-book,’ which contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as ‘ab,’ ‘ba,’ ‘ca,’ and ‘da.’ I began at once to devour this book, and I think that it was the first one I ever had in my hands. I had learned from somebody that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I tried in all the ways I could think of to learn it—all, of course, without a teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time there was not a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read, and I was too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet. In all my efforts to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition and sympathized with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally ignorant so far as mere book knowledge was concerned, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of good hard common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother. “The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley brought to me one of the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been working in a salt-furnace for several months, and my stepfather had discovered that I had a financial value, and so, when the school opened, he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This decision seemed to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was made all the more severe by reason of the fact that my place of work was where I could see the happy children passing to and from school morning and afternoon. Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn something anyway. I applied myself with greater earnestness than ever to the mastering of what was in the blue-back speller. “My mother sympathized with me in my disappointment and sought to comfort me in all the ways she could and to help me find a way to learn. After a while I succeeded in making arrangements with the teacher to give me some lessons at night, after the day’s work was done. These night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night than the other children did during the day. My own experiences in the night-school gave me faith in the night-school idea, with which, in after years, I had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee. But my boyish heart was still set upon going to day-school and I let no opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was permitted to go to the school in the day for a few months, with the understanding that I was to rise early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine o’clock, and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for at least two hours more of work. -Booker T. Washington   History and Highlights - with changing tones Mark Twain and Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive, cultivated a close friendship in their later years, and entertained mutual friends aboard the Rogers steam yacht, the Kanawha. The two men introduced each other to their acquaintances. On cruises aboard the Kanawha, they were joined at frequent intervals by Booker T. Washington, "the famed former slave who had become a leading educator". Twain was an adamant supporter of abolition and emancipation, even going so far to say, “Lincoln's Proclamation ... not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also..." He argued that non-whites did not receive justice in the United States. Twain was a staunch supporter of women's rights, also women's suffrage. Washington left this dimension November 14, 1915, at age fifty-nine. His final resting place is on the campus of Tuskegee Institute. Royal Marriage Gold-Silver, if birth at dawn majority of USA births are at dawn Aries Sun and Moon see Marlon Brando Washington probably tripple Aries with Aries Sun, Moon, and ASC Pisces stellium Destiny Path 11, the messenger   Mars is the planet ruler of Aries, the Ram, and with Pluto the aggressive urge will co-create and function in connection with the sacral center (Mars) and the solar plexus (Pluto). Combined with the Royal Marriage, Mars in Washington's star chart encouraged development of the Phoenix, or Holy Spirit on Pentecost, in our Christian lexicon. To this intensity and potency of transformation must be added the forceful and dynamic energy of the nigredo [death, clearing dead wood] via Washington's Pisces stellium [spiritual treasure, nourishment, and transcendental consciousness]. The energy of Pluto is ultimately directed toward initiation when Mars [iron, steel] is clear and purged of all toxic factors. Pluto will then produce the death of all hindering factors and of all that prevents synthesis. Linda Goodman writes, "Aries the Ram gives such an impression of sincerity that it’s startling to face his sheer audacity when he claims for a fact something he knows—or should know—to be untrue. Accuse him of dishonesty, and he’ll look at you in amazement, with candid eyes open wide in utter horror that you could doubt him. He can wear blinders and ear plugs to shut out anything he doesn’t want to believe. Even when his position is completely untenable, he’ll bravely stick to his guns and work for the lost cause with earnest conviction. Still, he can change his mind about an opinion you thought he was born with in a moment of fast decision, and when he does, it’s impossible for him to regain his former point of view, let alone remember it. His urge to toss the past in the trash can go forward at full speed (one of the chief reasons he adapts to new locations and people so painlessly)... Aries has an innocent wistful facet to his nature, and a kind of eternal, joyous, naive faith, blended with the blind zeal of the born crusader." -Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs   Aries Countries: Burgundy, Charlotte Amalie, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, Palestine, Poland, Switzerland, and Syria, and United States Virgin Islands Cities: Birmingham, Brunswick, Capua, Dacca (Bangladesh), Florence, London Underground (The Tube UK), Marseilles, Naples, Padua, Rotterdam, San Cristobal, Tehran (Iran), Tokyo (Japan), Utrecht, and Verona Nutrition: Potassium Phosphate and additional supplements may be obtained naturally by eating foods and spices that agitate the system and encourage activity. These foods include almonds, aloes, apples, apple cider, asparagus with almond sauce, banana daiquiri, bing cherries, capers, carrots, cauliflower, stuffed celery, chestnut and apple stuffing, chestnut crepes, chocolate dipped strawberries, cilantro, cole slaw, cucumbers, curried food, dates, fried eggplant and pepper sandwich, gazpacho, grapes, guacamole, horseradish, hunter’s cheese, lean meat, lemons, lentils, lettuce, lima beans, marinades, mushrooms, olives, onions, peppermint, peppers, pickles, pickled beets, potato salad, pumpkins, radishes, roast beef and walnut dip, salmon stuffed with caviar, shish kabob, smoky cheddar cheese, spinach, spumoni, tenderloin fillets, triple-cherries jubilee, tutti-frutti. Herbs and teas: Bayberry, Basil, Chamomile, Chickweed, Comfrey Root, Garlic, Ginger, Gota Kola, Hops, hot and spicy condiments, Hungarian Paprika, Licorice, Siberian Ginseng. Aries natives sometimes brew beer and wine as a hobby.     Booker T. Washington - Mini Biography You Tube 3:30 Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream" Full speech 1963 Washington 13:23 Tribute Page Martin Luther King, Jr. Washington had moved away from many of his accommodationist policies in later life. In 1915 he protested the stereotypical portrayal of blacks in a new movie, "Birth of a Nation." Some months later he died at age 59. A man who overcame near-impossible odds himself, Booker T. Washington is best remembered for helping black Americans rise up from the economic slavery that held them down long after they were legally free citizens.     Dr. Booker T. Washington Returns to Halesford In September of 1908, Dr. Washington returned to the former James Burroughs tobacco farm where he was born a slave in the spring of 1856. The Tuskegee Student provided a detailed account of Washington's visit to Franklin County on October 3, 1908. Tuskegee's Principal At His Old Home Booker T. Washington National Monument - Hardy, Virginia 24101 Booker T. Washington biography for Black History Month     Booker T Washington Community Service Center 800 Presidio Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94115-2921 (415) 928-6596 The Booker T. Washington Community Center gym is available to the Bay Area community for rent, with a tournament basketball court, and bathrooms which can accommodate sporting events that include badminton, basketball, indoor soccer, and volleyball. Booker Washington Community Center 524 Kent St. Rockford, Illinois 61102 Phone (815) 968-8861 Booker T. Washington Center Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. 54 Beacon, M.S. 54 103 West 107th Street, New York, NY 10025 Tel: (212) 866-5579     Astrologers: In astrology, two planets tend to dominate racial relations [in the military era]. Jupiter and Mercury refer to the ideal archetypes of the human race, the humanitarian/philanthropist, and equal opportunity employers. In positive mode, we have the teachings of Jesus and Buddha, and in negative form, those who believe only the strong should survive. Stories like Rosewood, Love Field, and The Defiant Ones peal back the cover of a book of discrimination. It has been around for thousands of years, assembled by the prince of lies, designed to force horrific racist brutality and murder on those of undisciplined character. Rosewood Tagline: In 1923, a black town in Florida was burned to the ground, its people murdered because of a lie. Some escaped and survived because of the courage and compassion of a few extraordinary people. This film is for them. related: Amistad Steven Spielberg 10 December 1997 USA Stars: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman About a 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the northeastern coast of America. Much of the story involves a court-room drama about the free man who led the revolt.