Editing Booker T. Washington (section)

== Early life ==
[[File:Booker T Washington, 3c, 1956 issue.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|On the 100th anniversary of his birth, April 5, 1956, the US Post office issued a [[commemorative stamp]] depicting the birthplace of Booker T. Washington in [[Franklin County, Virginia]]<ref>{{cite web |title=1956 Centennial of Booker T. Washington 3¢ Stamps |access-date=February 3, 2024 |publisher=Collector's Weekly Magazine |url=https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/117533-1956-centennial-of-booker-t-washington}}</ref>]]
Booker was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved [[African-American]] woman on the plantation of James Burroughs in southwest Virginia, near [[Hale's Ford, Virginia|Hale's Ford]] in [[Franklin County, Virginia|Franklin County]]. He never knew the day, month, and year of his birth<ref>{{cite book |last1=Washington |first1=Booker T. |title=Up from Slavery: An Autobiography |publisher=Doubleday, Page & Co. |year=1906 |orig-year=1901 |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/upfromslaveryan08washgoog |page=1}}</ref> (although evidence emerged after his death that he was born on April 5, 1856).{{efn|Louis R. Harlan writes, "BTW gave his age as nineteen in September 1874, which would suggest his birth in 1855 or late 1854.... As an adult, however, BTW believed he was born in 1857 or 1858. He celebrated his birthday on Easter, either because he had been told he was born in the spring, or simply in order to keep holidays to a minimum. After BTW's death, John H. Washington reported seeing BTW's birth date, April 5, 1856, in a Burroughs family bible. On this testimony, the Tuskegee trustees formally adopted that day as 'the exact date of his birth.' The trustees were understandably anxious to establish a time for celebrating the Founder's birthday, however, and apparently no one has seen this Bible since."<ref>Harlan, Louis R (1972), ''[https://archive.org/details/bookertwashingto0000harl/page/325/mode/2up Booker T. Washington: volume 1: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–1901]'', p. 325.</ref>}} Nor did he ever know his father, said to be a [[White Americans|white]] man who resided on a neighboring plantation. The man played no financial or emotional role in Washington's life.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=2}} From familysearch.org, his father was Benjamin N. Hatcher (b. 1821 d. 1900).

From his earliest years, Washington was known simply as "Booker", with no middle or surname, in the practice of the time.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=34}} His mother, her relatives and his siblings struggled with the demands of slavery. He later wrote:

<blockquote>I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were gotten to the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=9}}</blockquote>

When he was nine, Booker and his family in Virginia gained freedom under the [[Emancipation Proclamation]] as U.S. troops occupied their region. Booker was thrilled by the formal day of their [[emancipation]] in early 1865:

<blockquote>As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... [S]ome man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|pp=19–21}}</blockquote>

After emancipation Jane took her family to the free state of West Virginia to join her husband, Washington Ferguson, who had escaped from slavery during the war and settled there. The illiterate boy Booker began painstakingly to teach himself to read and attended school for the first time.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=27}}

At school, Booker was asked for a surname for registration. He chose the family name of Washington.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=34}} Still later he learned from his mother that she had originally given him the name "Booker [[Taliaferro]]" at the time of his birth, <!-- after his biological father? --> but his second name was not used by the master.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=35}} Upon learning of his original name, Washington immediately readopted it as his own, and became known as Booker Taliaferro Washington for the rest of his life.{{Sfn|Washington|1906|p=35}}

Booker loved books:

{{blockquote|The Negro worshipped books. We wanted books, more books. The larger the books were the better we like[d] them. We thought the mere possession and the mere handling and the mere worship of books was going, in some inexplicable way, to make great and strong and useful men of our race.<ref name=Burkebook>{{cite book
|first=Dawne Raines
|last=Burke
|title=An American Phoenix: A History of Storer College from Slavery to Desegregation, 1865–1955
|location=[[Morgantown, West Virginia]]
|publisher=Storer College Books, an imprint of [[West Virginia University Press]]
|year=2015
|page=76
|isbn=978-1940425771}}</ref>}}