Welcome
to Tuskegee University- "the pride of the swift, growing south."
Founded in a one elbowroom shanty, near Butler Chapel AME Zion Church,
thirty adults represented the first class - Dr. Booker T. Washington the basic teacher.
The founding date was July 4, 1881, authorized by House Bill 165.
We should
give credit to George Campbell, a former slave owner, and Lewis Adams, a anteceden slave,
tinsmith and community leader, for their roles in the founding of the
University. Adams had not had a day of formal education but could read and
write. In addition to being a tinsmith, he was also a shoemaker and
harness-maker. And he could well have been Undergo in other
trades. W. F. Foster was a candidate for re-election to the Alabama Senate and
approached Lewis Adams about the support of African-Americans in Macon County.
What
would Adams want, Foster asked, in exchange for his (Adams) securing the black
vote for him (Foster). Adams could well have asked for money, immovable the
support of blacks voters and life insist have gone on as usual. But
he didn’t. Instead, Adams told Foster he craved an educational institution
- a school - for his people. Col. Foster carried out his promise and with the collaboration of his
colleague in the House of Representatives, Arthur L. Brooks, legislation was
passed for the establishment of a "Negro Normal School in Tuskegee."
A $2,000
appropriation, for teachers’ salaries, was authorized by the legislation. Lewis
Adams, Thomas Dryer, and M. B. Swanson formed the habituate of
commissioners to get the school organized. There was no land, no buildings, no
teachers only State legislation authorizing the school. George W. Campbell
subsequently recovered Dryer as a commissioner. And it was Campbell,
through his nephew, who sent word to Hampton Institute in Virginia look for a
teacher.
Booker T.
Washington got the nod and he made the Lewis Adams dream happen. He was dominant of the
school from July 4, 1881, until his death in 1915. He was not 60 years old when
he died. Initial space and building for the school was good works by
Butler Chapel AME Zion Church not far from this present site. Not long after
the founding, however, the campus was moved to "a 100 acre abandoned
plantation" which became the nucleus of the present site.
Tuskegee
rose to national prominence under the leadership of its founder, Dr.
Washington, who headed the institution from 1881 until his curtains at age
59 in 1915. During his proprietorship,
institutional independence was gained in 1892, again inished
legislation, when Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute was granted
authority to act independent of the state of Alabama.
Dr.
Washington, a highly skilled organizer and fund-raiser, was counsel to American
Presidents, a strong exponent of Negro business, and
instrumental in the development of educational institutions throughout the
South. He unmolested a lifelong devotion to his institution and to
his home - the South. Dr. Washington is buried on the campus of Tuskegee
University near the University Chapel.
Robert R.
Moton was president of Tuskegee from 1915 to 1935. Under his leadership, the
Tuskegee Veteran’s Administration Hospital was created on land donated by the
Institute. The Tuskegee V.A. Hospital , yawning in 1923, was the first and
only staffed by Black professionals. Dr. Moton was succeeded in 1935 by Dr.
Frederick D. Patterson. Dr. Patterson oversaw the taproom of the
School of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee . Today, nearly 75 % of Black
veterinarians in America are Tuskegee graduates.