Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856 and was emancipated after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment of 1865.  So poor, Washington worked in salt and coal mines before he was 10 years old.

At the age of 16, he attended Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.  He walked the 200 miles from Hales Ford, Virginia to Hampton, Virginia.  After graduation, he taught school in Hales Ford and for a short while, at Hampton Institute.

 Washington worked tirelessy to end segregation, sometimes being at odds with the newly formed NAACP.  In 1881, Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.