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James William D. Bland was born on February 27, 1844, in Prince Edward County, the son of Hercules Bland and Mary Bland. Bland’s father was a free man and a cooper who purchased his wife to ensure their children’s freedom. Bland was taught to read and write by a slave in the household of his mother’s former owner. He worked with his father as a cooper and carpenter until 1864, when he entered an American Missionary Association school in Norfolk. For two years he studied there and also taught reading, geography, and arithmetic. Although the school refused to license Bland to teach becaus...

Constructing a HouseGeorge William Cole was born in Athens, Georgia, late in the 1840s. The record of his 1879 marriage identified his parents, William Cole and Martha Cole, as freedpersons, but little else is known of his youth. By early in the 1870s he was living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Inspired perhaps by his parents or by the heady events of emancipation and Reconstruction, Cole developed a desire for education and self-improvement. In 1872 he enrolled in the junior class of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University). Having earned promotion to the middle ...

( ThyBlackMan.com) As longtime admirers of legendary civil rights pioneer and educational entrepreneur Booker T. Washington, we felt compelled to pay tribute to this profoundly influential American during Born into slavery on April 18, 1856 in Hale’s Ford, Virginia, Washington died a free man 59 years later on November 14, 1915 in Tuskegee, Alabama. From a young age, he understood the power of education.  He worked hard and earned degrees from Hampton Normal, an agricultural institute (today Hampton University) and Wayland Seminary. Washington became recognized as a leading educator, auth...

( ThyBlackMan.com) As longtime admirers of legendary civil rights pioneer and educational entrepreneur Booker T. Washington, we felt compelled to pay tribute to this profoundly influential American during Born into slavery on April 18, 1856 in Hale’s Ford, Virginia, Washington died a free man 59 years later on November 14, 1915 in Tuskegee, Alabama. From a young age, he understood the power of education.  He worked hard and earned degrees from Hampton Normal, an agricultural institute (today Hampton University) and Wayland Seminary. Washington became recognized as a leading educator, auth...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Kent M. MacDonald.As longtime admirers of legendary civil rights pioneer and educational entrepreneur Booker T. Washington, we felt compelled to pay tribute to this