title: Pre-War Days at Tuskegee: Historical Essay on Tuskegee Institute, 1881 -1943
author: L. Albert Scipio II
description: Historical essay on Tuskegee Institute. Tuskegee University is a private, Historically Black University located in Tuskegee, Alabama, USA; established by Booker T. Washington.
zlib_text: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  # Tuskegee: A Retrospect and Prospect
  
  
  ### Booker T. Washington
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  THE Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute celebrates this year on April 4,
  5 and 6, its twenty-fifth birthday.
  
  
  As I look back at its humble beginnings, and its gradual growth into what it
  is, and the promise of what it shall be,
  
  
  it seems to me that one of its more important services has been to provide
  Negroes with an unusual opportunity
  
  
  to engage in the education and upbuilding of their own race. This school
  represents, in a large measure, the effort
  
  
  of the Negro race to help itself, and therein is the real significance of its
  work.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  From the first, it has been the effort of the Tuskegee Institute to teach the
  lessons of self-help by furnishing an
  
  
  example. With this aim in view, the task of building up and maintaining the
  school has been largely entrusted to its
  
  
  own students. They have, in a larg