WASHINGTON, BooKEn TALIAFERRO (the child of a mulatto slave and of a white man) (c.1858—). An American negro educator, born near Male's Ford, Franklin county, Va. Ire was a plantation slave, after the Civil War removed to Malden, W. Va., was there employed in a salt furnace, and later in a coal mine, and obtained his first instruction chiefly in a local night school. After much difficulty and hardship he made his way to the Hampton (Va.) Normal and Agricultural Institute, where he defrayed the cost of his hoard by acting as janitor, and studied for three years (1872-75). He then taught school for two years at Malden, studied further for eight months (1878-79) in the Way land Seminary of Washington. B. C., and in 1879 was appointed an instructor in the Hamp ton institute. There he was successful in di recting the work of about 75 Indians of whose education General Armstrong was then making trial. and introduced and took charge of the night school, which soon became an important feature. In 1881 he was appointed to establish a colored normal school at Tuskegee, Ala., the State Legislature having granted an annual ap propriation of $2000 to lie used for the salaries of instructors. He opened the school in a di lapidated shanty and a church, with 30 scholars, and himself as the only teacher. Subsequently
he transferred the school to its present site on a plantation bought for $500, about one mile from Tuskegee. His efforts to better the condi tion of this institution led to his appearance at many important public assemblages, both re ligious and secular, and his addresses on these occasions soon made him known as a remarkably fluent and effective speaker with a faculty for telling a homely story to illustrate his point. He became known, moreover, not only as a man who was tremendously in earnest, but as a far sighted and practical reformer. His most notable address was that given at the opening of the Atlanta (Ga.) Cotton States and international Exposition in 1895. in 1900 he organized the National Negro Business League at Boston, Mass. His publications include: The Future of the American (1899) ; a remarkable auto biography, Up front Slarery (1901, originally published in The Outlook in 1900-01) ; and ('hauactcr•JBui1eling (1902), a collection of ad dresses to Tuskegee students. Consult also, Thrasher, Tllskcycc; Its Story aml Its Work (Boston, 1900), with an introduction by Wash ington. See TUSEEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE.