Dean Ellis: Booker T. Washington

Artist: Dean Ellis
1920 -
Nationality: American
Artwork Year: 1988
Image Size: 21 by 18 inches
Overall Size: 27 by 24 inches
Medium: Oil on Masonite

Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 to a slave mother and a white father. Emancipation brought him the opportunity for education. As a young boy, though he worked rough jobs during the day, he managed to partake of that opportunity, learning at night from friendly teachers and from a well-worn copy of Webster's "Blue-Back Speller." At seventeen, Washington heard of the New Hampton Institute for Colored Youth and walked five hundred miles to get there. Once there, he persuaded the superintendent to admit him and, within a few years, Washington was a teacher himself. In 1881, Washington was asked to open a school in Alabama to train black students for farming and other occupations. Unfortunately, when he arrived, the school was more a promise than a reality. But, with unrivaled energy and vision, he built up the neglected quarters, acquired hundreds of acres of rich farm land, and attracted support from wealthy Northerners like Andrew Carnegie and Collis P. Huntington. By the 1890s, Booker T. Washington had earned a national reputation. In 1893, the southern states held a Cotton States Exposition at Atlanta, and it was Washington they asked to speak for Blacks. His address made history. "In all things that are purely social," he said on the question of race relations, "we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to progress." Washington summed up his life in the inspiring autobiography, Up From Slavery.

This artwork was originally published on the Fleetwood® Commemorative Cover for The Shapers of America series issued in 1987.

Artwork Copyright © 1988 Unicover Corporation. All Rights Reserved under United States and international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise exploit the Artwork in any way. Images of the Artwork may be watermarked and/or digitally watermarked. Any sale of the physical original does not include or convey the Copyright or any right comprised in the copyright.

Our Stock Number (SKU): XB11400

US$ Price: $2,500.00

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