Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 120
24.03.2006
The next year, 1893, he started the Minister's Night School. This is conducted
by the Phelps Hall Bible Training School of the Institute. Here country ministers
with large families and small means are given night courses in all the subjects
likely to be of service to them from "Biblical criticism" to the "planting and
cultivating of crops."
The year following Mrs. Washington began the Tuskegee Town Mothers'
Meetings. Both she and Mr. Washington had long been distressed at seeing the
women and young girls loafing about the streets of the town of Tuskegee when
they came to town with their husbands and fathers on Saturday afternoons.
Now, instead of loafing about the streets these women attend the Mothers'
Meetings where Mrs. Washington and the various women teachers give them
practical talks on all manner of housekeeping and family-raising problems from
the making of preserves to proper parental care.
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In 1895 the Building and Loan Association was established. The Institute's chief
accountant is its president, and the Institute's treasurer its secretary and
treasurer. This Association has enabled many scores of people to secure their
own homes who without its aid could not have done so.
The next year the Town Night School was started. This school has as its purpose
giving instruction to the boys and girls who have positions in the town which
make it impossible for them to attend the Institute, and to the servants in the
white families. This school has become one of the best and strongest forces in
the life of the community. As an outgrowth of it came later the Town Library
and Reading Room, for which Mr. Washington personally provided the room.
There is now in this school a cooking class for girls and several industrial
classes for boys. At the same time Mr. Washington established a Farmers'
Institute which is described in the chapter "Washington and the Negro Farmer."
In 1898 he started a County Fair to spur the ambition of the Negro farmers of
the county. This Negro County Fair under his guidance grew and flourished
from year to year. The whites maintained a separate County Fair. Finally, the
two fairs were combined, and now one of the most flourishing County Fairs in
all the South is conducted, both races supporting it by making exhibits, and
sharing in the success and profits of the enterprise, as well as in its general
management.
In 1900 he organized the National Negro Business