My+Contribution+to+Higher+Education

Booker T. Washington has be highly praised for his work at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for his life's work there. However, his philosophy of teaching and model for teaching and learning have proven invaluable to the many Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) which exist today. His influence has had far-reaching implications on the curriculum of those schools that followed. In the broader sense, while he did not invent the night school or outreach education services, he understood from the earliest based on his own wage earning experiences, that many adults could only attend these night sessions in order to provide for their families and seek an education. Chief among his greatest achievements, were his ability to fundraise and public speaking, which certainly assisted in the former. His strong resolve to connect his work at Tuskegee with the great American men of the time was uncanny but necessary for him to gain recognition, and more importantly, precious funding for the Institute. According to his own account of this ability Washington states that,

"I have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who possess some sense enough to earn money have sense enough to to know how to give it away,and that the mere making known of the facts regarding Tuskegee and especially the facts regarding the work of the graduates, has been more effective than outright begging" (Washington, p.89).

That he engaged from the earliest the cooperation of the local community surrounding Tuskegee and made known how the Institute could help an individual, the community and an entire race through service to others is arguably the most effective marketing strategy any business or institutional development plan at places of higher learning and ultimately the hallmark of Washington's legacy. The photograph below is an example of the great Americans that Booker Washington would come to know in his time as Principal and later President of Tuskegee.