Images of Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site – Alabama, taken in June 2024.

Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site tells the story of the institution founded on July 4, 1881 by former slave owner, George Cambell and former slave, Lewis Adams. Booker T Washington became the school's first teacher and was its Founding Principal until his death in 1915. Initially established as a “Normal School for Colored Teachers at Tuskegee” the school expanded in the post-Reconstruction era, and Washington recruited George Washington Carver in 1896 to run the agriculture department. The success of the school drew benefactors such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller whose financial backing allowed the school to grow.

Washington’s vision was to improve the lives of African Americans and society as a whole. As stated on the monument dedicated to the man in 1922, “He Lifted the Veil of Ignorance from his People and Pointed the Way to Progress Through Education and Industry”.