Forms You May Need

February
Posted on 02/18/2024
Hanson Middle

Good morning,

Attached is the February Newsletter.
Please enjoy these biographies on Phillis Wheatley & Booker T Washington. 

Sincerely, 

Bill Tranter, Principal
February Newsletter 2024.pdf

Booker T. Washington

On the eve of the American Civil War, Booker T. Washington was born into slavery near Hale’s Ford, in Franklin County, Virginia. Though he never knew it in his lifetime, later evidence was discovered that placed his birth  on April 5, 1856. Washington’s mother’s name was Jane, and although he never had a relationship with him, nor did he ever meet him, his father was said to be a white man, who lived at a neighboring plantation. Simply known as “Booker” as a child, Washington’s life began as one could imagine, as one of great hardship and toil.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the states that had rebelled against the Union. When Union troops arrived to take control of the area, Booker and his family were essentially free. Shortly after the end of the war in 1865, now officially free, Booker and his family moved to West Virginia to be closer to Jane’s husband, Washington Ferguson, a slave who had escaped slavery during the war, and settled there.

Having spent his formative years in slavery, Booker was illiterate, and it was after moving to West Virginia that he began his quest to better himself and his station through education. Booker began attending school for the first time, and it was at this point that he was asked to give a surname for registration. While he chose the family name of “Washington”, he soon became aware that his mother had given him the name of “Booker Taliaferro” at birth, his master never bothered to use that name. From that day forward, he readopted the name, and for the rest of his left, he went by Booker Taliaferro Washington.

Washington worked hard, both in school where he became a voracious reader, always thirsting for knowledge, in the meantime, to help his family, he worked in various salt and coal mines throughout West Virginia. Washington attended Hampton Institute, established in Virginia for freedmen and their descendants, where he also worked to pay his tuition, and also attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. At just 25, Booker was recommended to lead the newly formed Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University.

Within the next year, Washington bought a former plantation and created what would become the permanent campus. With his leadership, his students built the school from the ground up, even making the bricks to construct the buildings they would learn in. Livestock and crops were raised both to aid in their learning and to sustain the campus. Males and females were made to learn trades alongside their academic pursuits, the end goal was not to produce farmers and tradespeople, but instead to create teachers of trades and agriculture who would teach at colleges for blacks throughout the South. Carver would seek out the best and brightest to work at the institute, including George Washington Carver, who would become a lifelong friend.

In his time as leader of Tuskegee, Washington continued to pioneer new educational beliefs with an emphasis on practical skills and vocational training. Washington stressed economic independence and self-improvement through hard work, and tangible skills, with the goal of elevating and uplifting the African-American community to a place of eventual equal status with white society, even amidst post-Reconstruction Era practices in the South.  

Through it all, Washington was becoming a prominent figure in America, building relationships with both African Americans, and white society. He was able to gain funding for various black schools throughout the country with the relationships he built with prominent figures such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and many more. Culminating with his famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech of 1895, Washington believed in cooperation with white Southerners, rather than confrontation or conflict. Through this approach, he would gain both admirers such as Theodore Roosevelt, who famously invited him to dine at the White House, as well as criticism from more radical African American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, who believed his approach fostered continued subservience to whites.

Washington became a nationally renowned figure, receiving honorary degrees and accolades from prominent Universities, including Harvard and Dartmouth, and published his autobiography, titled, “Up From Slavery” in 1901. To the end of his life, Washington remained committed to education and self-improvement, would continue to lead Tuskegee Institute for more than 30 years, and continue to live on campus until his death in 1915. His funeral, at Tuskegee’s chapel, was attended by more than 8,000 people. Booker T. Washington remains an important figure in American History and though his practices and methods sparked debate , his work would help inspire the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Black History Month Weekly Article: Phillis Wheatley

Though her exact birthdate is disputed, historians believe that Phillis Wheatley was born around 1753 in either Senegal or Gambia in West Africa. Around the age of seven, she was seized by a local chief of a rival tribe, and sold to a slave trader, and then taken to the Americas. Due to her age, and physical frailties, she was not sold in the West Indies or the Southern Colonies, where the labor of slaves would have been the most harsh, but instead taken to Boston. The captain of the ship thought that young Phillis was terminally ill, and so, hoping to turn a small profit before she died, he sold her to a wealthy merchant and tailor John Wheatley. The Wheatley family named her Phillis, after the ship that brought her to Boston, and as was often the custom of the time, she was given the surname of her masters. 

John Wheatley was considered to be a progressive in his day by many in New England, and it was not long after Phillis arrived that she began to receive an unprecedented education, not only unheard of for an enslaved person, but unlikely for a woman of any race in her time. Phillis’s gifts became apparent very quickly as Wheatley’s children, Mary and Nathaniel began tutoring her. Phillis quickly learned to read and write, mastered English and studied Latin, history, astronomy and geography, as well as the Bible and the works of not only English writers like Pope and Milton, but also the classic works of the Greeks and Romans like Homer and Virgil. In education, Phillis found her true passion and calling; poetry.

Though Phillis began publishing poetry as early as the age of 13, it was a 1770 elegy on the death of celebrated orator and reverend George Whitefield that brought her national and later, international acclaim. By the age of 20 in 1773, Phillis had amassed a collection of 28 poems that she and Mrs. Wheatley intended to publish. Realizing that the colonies may be less willing to support the works of an African, Mrs. Wheatley arranged for Phillis to travel to London where she not only got her collection of poems published, she had an audience with many of Britain’s most prominent citizens, a meeting with King George III even being arranged, but never happening given Phillis’s return to Boston. 

Shortly after Phillis’s book was published in the autumn of 1773, the Wheatleys gave Phillis her freedom. Though criticized in multiple British editorials for keeping Phillis in bondage while presenting her to British society as a prodigy, the Wheatleys had shielded Phillis from both the atrocities that most slaves endured, as well as the economic hardships faced by freed blacks in the American Colonies. 

As the American Revolution broke out in 1775, Phillis and the remaining members of the Wheatley Family (Mrs. Wheatley died shortly after Phillis was given her freedom) moved from British occupied Boston, and settled in Providence, Rhode Island. It was at this time that Phillis learned of George Washington’s appointment as Commander of the Continental Army. An ardent supporter of American independence, Phillis wrote a heroic poem in the epic style of Homer and Virgil, titled, “His Excellency, General Washington”. In the poem, Wheatley elevates both Washington and the American cause to near mythic proportions, extolling Washington and the Continental Army, and emphasizing that America’s fight for freedom was one that the whole world was watching. Phillis then sent the poem to the general at his headquarters in Cambridge, MA. 

Though Washington’s receipt of the poem would be delayed as the siege of Boston progressed, what happened next may surprise many modern readers, who remember Washington only as a slave holder. Washington not only took the time to write and thank her for her poem, but apologized for the lateness of his reply, and praised her “poetical talents”. Washington even invited Phillis to meet with him at his headquarters. Though the evidence is less than definitive, many historians believe that Phillis indeed made the trip to Cambridge to meet with the general. If true, Wheatley’s impact on Washington, and American History may be greater than she ever could have imagined. 

Prior to his interaction with Phillis, Washington by all accounts, appeared to be a typical slaveholder of his day. However, his views on race and slavery began to change in the years that followed. He not only reversed a previous decision to allow black soldiers to fight in the Continental Army, but by the 1780’s began writing to many prominent Virginians that he hoped legislation would be passed abolishing slavery altogether. Shortly before his death, Washington amended his will to free his slaves (that he personally owned, Virginia law did not allow him to free dowry slaves owned by his wife, Martha’s family), as well as provide them with education and trades to support themselves, upon his wife, Martha’s death. Unfortunately, Phillis would not live to see Washington’s evolution. 

Phillis Wheatley’s last years included an unhappy marriage, the deaths of all of her three children, and constant struggles with poverty and illness. Though she died in relative obscurity on December 5, 1784, at just 31, Phillis Wheatley has since emerged as a pivotal figure in African American Literature, as well as an important figure in the broad scope of American History. 

 


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