OCR Text |
Show BOOKER T. WASHINGTON DEAD. Noted Leader of Negro Race Suffers Nervous Breakdown. Tuskegee, Ala. Booker T. Washington, Wash-ington, foremost teacher and leader . of the negro race, died early Sunday at his home here, near the Tuskegee institute, of which he was founder and president Hardening of the arteries ar-teries following a nervous breakdown caused death four hours after Dr. Washington arrived from New York. Doctor Washington was born in slavery near Halesford, Va., in 1857 or 1858. After the emancipation of his race, he moved with his family to West Virginia, When he was able to scrape together sufficient money to pay his stage coach fare to Hampton, Va., he entered General Armstrong's school for negroes and worked his way through an academic course, graduating in 1875. Later he became a teacher in the Hampton institute, where he remained until 1881, when he organized the Industrial In-dustrial School for Negroes at Tuskegee, Tuske-gee, to which he devoted most of his attention during the remaining years of his life. The institute started in a rented shanty church. Today it owns 3,500 acres of land in Alabama and has nearly 100 buildings valued at $500 -000. ' |