Booker T. Washington deserves recognition during February's National Black History Month and beyond. His biography, Up from Slavery, recounts a principled life. Born a slave in 1856, Washington was seven when the Emancipation Proclamation rang in his ears. At 11, he got his first book and taught himself to read. He thought to "get into a schoolhouse and study ... would be about the same as getting into paradise."

His attendance at school as a child was irregular; he had to quit to work, but eventually attended night school. Booker set off alone at 16 -- on a 500-mile journey with $1.50 in his pocket -- to study at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, where deserving students were provided opportunities by which they could earn their keep. Washington attended classes during the day and labored at night to earn his room and board. He recounts, "At Hampton I ... learned to love labour, not alone for its financial value, but for labour's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants brings."

Washington believed that an education and a solid work ethic were the cornerstones to an individual's betterment. When he opened the doors of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute on Independence Day in 1881, those principles formed the school’s foundation. The school was built by its students -- literally. They designed and constructed virtually every building on the campus. Students made the bricks and dug "out the earth where the foundations were to be laid." Washington proudly wrote in his autobiography, students labored "after the regular classes were over," as he did while at Hampton. Profits from student-run businesses helped defray room and board costs for poor students.

Industrial education was one of three objectives Washington set for the school at its inception. He believed such an education was to be the basis on which "habits of thrift, a love of work, ownership of property, [and] bank accounts," would grow.

Washington wrote in Up from Slavery, "I have never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed. I have always had high regard for the man who could tell me how to succeed." His school, bearing the name Tuskegee University, stands to this day, a testament to the man and his principles.