This Day in Black History: July 4, 1881 – BET Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, holds first day of class, with Booker T. Washington serving as the first teacher.

On July 4, 1881, educator and activist Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, known today as Tuskegee University, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Washington served as the school’s first principal and presided over the first day of class, which was held in a one-room church before the first official building was erected one year later. A driving force behind building the school’s legacy, Washington recruited the most qualified Black teachers to teach at the school, including scientist George Washington Carver, who arrived in 1896.

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Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university (HBCU) located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was established by Booker T. Washington. The campus is designated as the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site by the National Park Service and is the only one in the U.S. to have this designation. The university was home to scientist George Washington Carver and to World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen.

Tuskegee University offers 40 bachelor’s degree programs, 17 master’s degree programs, a 5-year accredited professional degree program in architecture, 4 doctoral degree programs, and the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. The university is home to over 3,100 students from the U.S. and 30 foreign countries. Tuskegee University was ranked among 2015’s best 379 colleges and universities by The Princeton Review and 5th among the 2015 U.S. News & World Report best HBCUs.

The university’s campus was designed by architect Robert Robinson Taylor, the first African American to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Wikipedia)

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