August 7, 1946 - Booker T. Washington - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Commemorative coin honours black activist Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on April 5, 1856 in Hales Ford, Virginia. When his family was freed in April 1865 by the Emancipation Proclamation, they moved to Malden, West Virginia. There, Washington worked early morning mine shifts before attending school. He eventually enrolled at the Hampton Institute of Virginia, a new school for blacks that he later served as an instructor. Washington went on to create the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881, and build a nation-wide reputation as an activist for education. Blacks would achieve full equality only when they had educational opportunities equal to whites, he preached. Washington died in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1915, but his legacy lives on. On August 7, 1946, the U.S. Congress made him the first African American to be commemorated on an American coin.

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