Distinguished educator Booker T. Washington was born a slave on a Virginia farm in 1856. He went on to study at the Hampton Institute and eventually headed the Tuskegee Institute. He worked tirelessly on behalf of the Institute and on behalf of black education. In 1901, he authored a highly acclaimed memoir, entitled Up From Slavery. By the time of his death, the Tuskegee Institute had a student body of 1,500, with 100 buildings and an endowment of $2 million.