# 873 - 1940 Famous Americans: 10c Booker T. Washington

Issue Date: April 7, 1940
First City: Tuskegee Institute, Alabama
Quantity Issued: 14,125,580
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Rotary Press
Perforation: 10 ½ x 11
Color: Dark brown

 

U.S. #873 commemorates Booker T. Washington, the first president of the Tuskegee Institute. It was the first time an African American was pictured on a U.S. postage stamp. Washington was born a slave, and after the Civil War he worked his way through the Hampton Institute and Wayland Seminary. In 1881, at age 25, he was named the president of the newly created Tuskegee Institute.

 

Happy Birthday Booker T. Washington 

Booker grew up on the plantation of James Burroughs with his mother, who worked there as a cook. His father was an unknown white man, likely from a nearby plantation. Booker began working as a child, carrying 100-pound bags of grain to the plantation’s mill. Passing by a nearby school one day, he looked in the window and saw children his age reading, and he longed to do the same.

When the Civil War was over, Booker’s family moved to Malden, West Virginia, where his mother married freedman Washington Ferguson. Booker did his part to help the struggling family by working with his stepfather in the salt furnaces. His mother recognized his desire to learn, so she bought him a book. He woke up every morning to study and soon learned to read and write. It was also around this time he took his stepfather’s first name as his last name.

After graduating in 1875, Washington went on to attend the Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., and teach at his former schools in Malden and Hampton. Then in 1881, the Alabama state legislature granted $2,000 for a “colored” school, known at the time as the Tuskegee Normal Industrial Institute. Washington’s former mentor, General Armstrong, was asked to recommend a white man to run the school. Instead, he suggested Washington, who then traveled the area promoting the school and raising money.

Washington dedicated himself to the school and its mission, teaching his own practices of patience, enterprise, and thrift. He became a national figure through his role at the school.

Washington also encouraged African Americans to learn a trade so they could prosper through hard work. He seemed to endorse segregation when he said, “We can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” The speech was met with loud applause and a standing ovation. The editor of a local newspaper called it “the beginning of a moral revolution in America.” Some black activists, such as W.E.B. DuBois, felt Booker had encouraged white oppression and named the talk the “Atlanta Compromise.”