About
Friends of Booker T. Washington National Monument
On June 9, 2008 the Booker T. Washington National Monument was incorporated as a nonprofit 501c3 to form FRIENDS OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON NATIONAL MONUMENT. The purpose of this group is to support the Park in areas where federal shortages can not support programs, events and personnel. The Friends, unencumbered by Federal regulations, seek to provide the means for additional programming, community outreach, advocacy and financial assistance. In addition to volunteer time, the Friends implement an annual program for membership, and raise funds and awareness for the Park.
The Park
Booker T. Washington National Monument is a commemoration of the birthplace of America’s most prominent African American educator and orator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The property evokes an 1850’s middle class tobacco farm, representative of Booker T. Washington’s enslaved childhood at the Burroughs farm where he lived throughout the Civil War.
The Story of the Bucket
As a child, Washington cast his bucket into a spring on the Burroughs Plantation so that he could offer much needed relief to the workers struggling in the tobacco fields. As an adult, Washington spoke at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895 where he encouraged all Americans to cast down their buckets among one another to ensure the prosperity and protection of this country. Understanding that we encourage and depend on each other, the Friends of Booker T. Washington National Monument use the bucket to symbolize our efforts to protect and preserve the resources at this National Park and the legacy of Booker T. Washington.
Booker Taliferro Washington
Booker was born a slave to his mother Jane on the Burroughs Farm in Hale's Ford, Virginia in
April 1856. He left after Emancipation in 1865 with his family to live in Malden, West Virginia.
Booker T. Washington is one of the most influential African Americans of the 20th Century. Learn
more about his story and his accomplishments on the Booker T. Washington timeline.