Journal of History and Culture Journal of History and Culture

j o u r n a l o f h i s t o r y a n d c u l t u r e
supplementing current views that may affect the education of Blacks architects, planners and constructors, particularly
women, in 21 st century America and beyond.
Booker T. Washington’s Views
In the United States, the greatest problem of Black education sprang up from the more practical question of
work, the inevitable economic quandary that faces a people in the transition from slavery to freedom, and especially
those who make that change amid hate and prejudice, lawlessness, and ruthless competition. 14 As mentioned earlier
in the article, a series of normal schools were designed to produce Black teachers to teach the untaught. From
these schools arose a single generation of 30 thousand Black teachers in the South which started the teaching and
learning transition to overcome illiteracy for a majority of Blacks in the United States. 15 This systematic plan made
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (later Tuskegee Institute and now Tuskegee University) possible. Founded
in 1881 by Washington, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute inculcated the principles of providing practical
training for Blacks and helping them develop economic self-reliance through the mastery of manual trades such as
the training of master builders and agricultural skills. 16
Washington adopted an apprenticeship approach in the Tuskegee Industrial Department, which would
prepare Blacks for the role of the master builder. 17 Because of the interest in immediate economic goals contained
in Washington’s educational approach, Whites did not realize that Washington anticipated the complete acceptance
and integration of Blacks into American life. He believed Blacks, starting with so little, would have to begin at the
bottom and work up gradually to achieve positions of power and responsibility before they could demand equal
citizenship—even if it meant temporarily assuming a position of inferiority. Washington argued that, despite years
of White brutalization, Blacks must improve their own lot in life, through discipline, industry, and hard work.
However, one of the most important requirements to receive training at Tuskegee was that of labor. Washington’s
apprenticeship approach represented a form of labor that assumed the presence of an expert who worked alongside
trainees and/or set up situations that would cause trainees to work on problems even before fully understanding
them. 18 Blacks were required to perform some manual labor “not only to develop self-discipline but also to develop
healthy respect for honest labor.” 19 Washington believed in the style of training that makes use of the student’s
psychomotor and cognitive learning domains of “learning by doing.” 20 At this point, Washington’s definition of an
educated Black person had similarities to John Dewey’s belief that a human should not be at a mindless grueling
laborer without having some education in the arts and classics of academia and be able to broaden his or her morals
12