Booker T. Washington: Swept a classroom as his entrance exam
Born enslaved, he worked in salt furnaces and a coal mine as a boy. He walked much of the way to a college in Virginia, where his entrance test was to sweep a room.
Salt and coal
Booker T. Washington was born enslaved in Virginia in 1856. After emancipation his family moved to Malden, West Virginia, where as a boy he packed salt and worked in a coal mine, fitting in lessons around his shifts.
The long walk
In 1872, at about 16, he set out for the Hampton Institute in Virginia, roughly 500 miles away, walking and begging rides much of the way and working on the docks in Richmond to pay for food.
The test
When he arrived, dirty and without money, the head teacher told him to sweep a classroom. He swept it three times and dusted it four, and she found no dust. He was admitted and worked as a janitor to pay his way.
What came of it
In 1881, aged 25, he became the first head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where students learned trades and built many of the buildings themselves. He told the story in Up From Slavery (1901).
His first test was ordinary work done very thoroughly. How you do the small task in front of you is often what people judge you on.
Where the facts come from: Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901); Tuskegee University history pages.
