"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way." Booker T. Washington
In 1881, Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Normal Scool for Colored Teachers on a former plantation with the mission of educating freedmen for self-sufficiency.
Today the university is a center of excellence for African-American education. One of the most famous teachers at Tuskegee was George Washington Carver, whose name is synonymous with innovative research into Southern farming and products.
Rosa Parks was born here.
The Oaks was Booker T. Washington's command center and Tuskegee Institute's social center. It was a place of employment and an on-the-job training site for students. The site is run by the National Parks Service.
Inside The Oaks: Faculty members often called on Sunday afternoons but Washington often "cloistered himself in his office Sunday afternoons while his wife Margaret was entertaining young faculty members in the parlor."
The family moved into the house in 1900. The Queen Anne style red brick house, with steam heating and electrivity, was the first of its kind in Macon County. Most furnishings were made by local craftsmen and students and acquired between 1885-1889. Prominent people visited The Oaks including Andrew Carnegie and President Theodore Roosevelt.
A teacher's school was the dream of Lewis Adams, a former slave. Despite lacking formal education, Adams could read, write and speak several languages. He was an experienced tinsmith, harness-maker and shoemaker, an acknowledged leader of the African-American community in Macon County, Alabama. His daughter was the first graduate of the Tuskegee Normal School.
Booker T. Washington's office as he knew it.
In The Oaks gift shop.
The home set an example for what students could accomplish.
A few miles away is the flight field where the first African-American military aviators in the United States trained during World War II. The Airmen were subjected to racial discrimination. In spite of this they trained and flew with distinction. 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1941 to 1946.
Contrary to negative predictions from some quarters, Tuskegee Airmen were some of the best pilots in the U. S. Army Air Corps. Nevertheless, the Tuskegee Airmen continued to have to fight racism.
After segregation in the military was ended in 1948 by President Truman, the veteran Tuskegee Airmen found themselves in high demand throughout the US Air Force.
The National Park Service created a stellar exhibit.
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