Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community.

Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Quotes

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”

“Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”