Tuskegee University

The campus, 1916

The Tuskegee University is one of the most historic African-American educational institutions in the United States . It is based in the city of Tuskegee , Alabama and still exists today. It is now open to all population groups.

history

History class 1902

It was founded in 1880 by Lewis Adams, a former slave who taught himself several languages, reading and writing, and George Campbell, a former slave owner. Adams was an excellent tinsmith, saddler, and shoemaker, and was recognized as a prominent leader in the African American community of Macon County, Alabama. Because of this, W. F. Foster, a white candidate for the state Senate, asked him what he wanted in return for securing black votes. Adams has asked that an educational institution for blacks be established. After Foster won the election in 1880, Tuskegee received $ 2,000 per year from the total budget for a teacher training facility, the Negro Normal School in Tuskegee , Macon County.

About the initial equipment of the facility, Rackham Holt wrote in a biography of George W. Carver, a later faculty member (see below), regarding the use of a cash donation of $ 100:

"Adams claims he stretched it to cover a" good "horse, a secondhand lumber wagon, a plow, harness, and a sack of corn to feed the horse. [...] At least the horse enables the students to start planting cabbages, watermelons, corn, sweet potatoes, and sorghum. "

"Adams claims he used it so sparingly that it was enough for a" good "horse, a used lumberjack wagon, a plow, saddlery, and a sack of corn to feed the horse. [...] The horse enabled the students to start planting cabbage, watermelons, corn, sweet potatoes and sorghum . "

- Rackham Holt : George Washington Carver , 1943

The first principal of the school, Booker T. Washington, characterized the beginning of the establishment in his autobiography as follows:

“All of the industries at Tuskegee have been started in natural and logical order growing out of the needs of a community settlement. We began with farming because we wanted something to eat. "

“All of these activities were done in a natural and logical order that grew out of the needs of a community. We started farming because we wanted something to eat. "

- Booker T. Washington : Up from Slavery , 1901

Lewis Adams, Thomas Dryer, and M. B. Swanson formed the school board. The school officially opened in a small room in Tuskegee rented from the church on July 4, 1881. The board of directors had been able to win Booker T. Washington , also a former slave, then a 25-year-old teacher at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, as training director. He remained the school principal from 1881 until his untimely death in 1915 at the age of 59. He modeled Tuskegee from his own experience at the Hampton Institute. In those 34 years he led the Tuskegee Institute to national prominence. As early as 1882, with the help of wealthy supporters, he was able to acquire a former plantation site on which the future university buildings were mainly built by the students themselves and on which the university is still located today.

Washington was able to attract some important employees who then opened their own faculties, such as the botanist George Washington Carver , Robert Robinson Taylor , the first black architect from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , (MIT) and David A. Williston , one of the first Afro-American Landscape architects.

In 1892, the Negro Normal School received permission to change its name to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and begin state-independent university operations. B. T. Washington was now a celebrity as a preacher and as a leading spokesman for African American people in the United States. He had brought together a network of high net worth donors that included the likes of Andrew Carnegie , Collis P. Huntington , John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Huttleston Rogers (Founders of Standard Oil ). Another prominent supporter of the university was Julius Rosenwald , son of Jewish immigrants, self-made man and now CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago . He and other Jewish friends had taken up the cause of African American people, especially in the southern states. B. T. Washington and Rosenwald initiated the construction of over 5000 schools for African-American children in the rural south of the USA, for which they raised half the funds and the responsible municipality had to finance the necessary shortfall. B. T. Washington died of a heart attack in 1915, leaving behind a vibrant university with a handsome endowment of over $ 1.5 million.

B. T. Washington's successors in the presidency were:

• Robert R. Moton led the institute for over 20 years
• 1935 Dr. Frederick D. Patterson
• 1953 Dr. Luther H. Foster

Second World War

Until the beginning of the Second World War , African Americans were denied service in the United States Army Air Forces . Here was the racial segregation in sharper expression than in other parts of the US Army. In the struggle for the emancipation of African Americans and their civil rights, the Roosevelt government agreed, after massive protests against this discrimination in 1941, to create a training center for black fighter pilots at the Tuskegee Institute . A training squad of the US Air Force was located at the institute and housed at the nearby Moton airfield (a good six kilometers from the university). The around 1000 black pilots trained here (around 15,000 ground personnel were also trained) were known as Tuskegee Airmen , who achieved numerous aerial victories and kills in World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Airfield, named after Robert R. Moton, B. T. Washington's successor, was founded in 1998 and includes a museum with numerous exhibits on the history of the black aviators.

After 1945

The Tuskegee Institute acquired university status in 1985. Today it offers undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees to more than 3,000 students. It still has a strong focus on the relationship between education and labor, what is now called the "technical field". Tuskegee was the first "black" college to be designated a Registered National Historic Landmark (1966) and is the only "black" college to be a National Historic Site .

swell

1. ^ Rackham Holt: George Washington Carver. An American Biography. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York 1943 (English, [1] ).
2. ^ Booker T. Washington: Up from Slavery: An Autobiography . Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York 1901 (English, [2] ).
3. ↑ About Tuskegee . Tuskegee University. Archived from the original on May 27, 2010. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 14, 2010. 
4. ^ Robert Robinson Taylor (1868-1942) in the MIT Museum

literature

• Tuskegee to date - Founded July 4, 1881 - Printed by Press of Tuskegee 1909
• Helen W. Ludlow (ed.): Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School, for training colored teachers, at Tuskegee, Alabama. Its story and its songs . Publisher: Normal school steam press, Hampton Va., 1884
• H. Rufus White: "A Joshua in the camp," or, The life of Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Alabama . Printed in Towson, Md. (1895)
• Booker T. Washington: Tuskegee & its people: their ideals and achievements . Publisher: D. Appleton and Co., New York 1905
• National Park Service: General Management Plan: Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site , Alabama (1978)

Ellen Weiss: Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington . Publisher: New South Books, 2012 ISBN 978-1-58838-248-1

Web links

Commons : Tuskegee University  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Tuskegee Institute  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• History of Tuskegee (English)
• Official website (English)
• Presentation of the history of the Tuskegee Institute on the university website
• Website of the Museum of the Tuskegee Airmen at the airport Moton (English)

Coordinates: 32 ° 25 ′ 48.6 "  N , 85 ° 42 ′ 26.2"  W.